By Matt Murphy
State House News Service, July 24, 2013

While the House and Senate were busy Wednesday finalizing a tax-raising transportation funding bill, the makings of the next big debate on Beacon Hill were taking shape outside the State House walls. Advocates for a minimum wage increase gathered to announce their plans to push for a ballot question in 2014 to raise the minimum wage to $11 an hour if the Legislature doesn’t act before then, while the National Federation of Independent Business released a study predicting that such a wage hike by 2015 tied to inflation could cost the state nearly 63,000 jobs over the next 10 years ...

“It’s just not anywhere close to being accurate. It’s what they’ve said in the past and it has never come to fruition,” [Sen. Marc] Pacheco said, responding to the report. “The same groups opposed to the minimum wage were also in opposition to passing health care reform in Massachusetts. They were also for the most part in opposition to passing new sets of energy legislation. States that we compete against did not do what we did, and we’ve created more jobs than they have.” ...

Rep. Thomas Conroy and Sen. Daniel Wolf, co-chair the legislative committee that is weighing minimum wage proposals this session, said they are still in “learning mode” and welcome reports like the NFIB study, even if it contradicts much of what they’re read to date. ... “a lot of the reports point to either growth or no real effect on the economy or jobs. No deleterious effect,” Conroy said. ...

According to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, the minimum wage has increased six times since 1995, and each time employment growth in industries with high concentrations of minimum wage workers has been more positive than total employment growth, and “markedly higher” than growth in sectors with low concentrations of minimum wage workers. ...

In Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, several business owners from around the country joined New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Sen. Bob Casey, of Pennsylvania and Rep. George Miller, of California, and Rep. Donna Edwards of Maryland to announce the formation of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage. [Correction: not formation, but launching a new business petition in support of higher minimum wage.]

Suggesting that the federal minimum wage of $7.25 is lower today than it was in 1956 when adjusted for inflation, the business owners argued that paying employees a livable wage improves productivity and morale and reduces turnover, saving owners the cost of training new employees.

Others reports have suggested increasing rates of pay for employees will attract more qualified workers to Massachusetts and create more disposable income that employees will spend, thus helping the economy.

Pacheco predicted that in 20 years, if the minimum wage issue is not put to rest by tying it to inflation, groups like the NFIB will be back with another identical study warning that businesses can’t afford it. “I’m trying to deal with facts. They’re trying to deal with myths that they keep putting out there and just never come true,” Pacheco said.

Various Newspapers e.g. online at Wicked Local

Copyright 2013 State House News Service