A debate over adequate worker compensation that was waged before a legislative committee Tuesday and could be headed to the ballot next November has pitted two struggling groups against one another.
On one side, workers earning the $11 an hour minimum wage spoke about living in poverty while holding down jobs at successful businesses. On the other side, small business representatives said hiking the minimum wage to $15 over the next four years would be a death knell for retailers already chafing against the high cost of doing business in Massachusetts while competing against tax-free sellers from New Hampshire and the internet.
If legislation co-sponsored by nearly half the Legislature goes into effect, then retailers, who are required to pay workers 50 percent extra on Sundays, would owe employees at least $22.50 per hour on the prime shopping day.
“There will not be a store in Massachusetts open on Sundays,” Retailers Association of Massachusetts President Jon Hurst told the Committee on Labor and Workforce Development.
The Raise Up Massachusetts coalition, which pressured lawmakers to increase the wage floor in 2014, is threatening to go to the ballot next year with a $15 minimum wage if lawmakers do not pass a bill to its liking.
The coalition is backing bills filed by the late Sen. Ken Donnelly and Rep. Dan Donahue that would raise the minimum hourly wage to $15 by 2021 and then link it to inflation.
The minimum wage in January rose to $11, the last of three one-dollar increases required under the 2014 law. A worker making $11 per hour working 40 hours a week year-round would make just under $23,000, which is just above the federal poverty level for a family of three.
Analyzing 2014 data, the Brookings Institute found Boston had a greater income divide between rich and poor than any other city in the country. The information used in that study dates back to when the Bay State’s minimum wage was $8 per hour. The second most unequal city was New Orleans, whose minimum wage is $7.25 per hour – same as the federal minimum wage.
In 2016, the number of Massachusetts residents living in poverty fell to 686,597 people and median household income rose to $75,297 a year, according to the Census Bureau.
The bill filed by Donnelly and Donahue has been co-sponsored by 22 senators and 70 representatives, or a little more than half of the Senate and just under half of the House, according to Raise Up. No Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors.
Congressman James McGovern, a Worcester Democrat, who was in Boston to speak to the New England Council on Tuesday, said he supports the push to raise the minimum wage through the 2018 ballot.
“I think we need to find ways to make sure that work pays, and pays enough so that people don’t need to rely on public assistance, don’t need to rely on government to afford food, so I would favor the ballot initiative and whatever comes out of the state Legislature,” McGovern said.