PORTLAND — The local minimum wage hike to $10.10 per hour that Portland’s City Council passed Monday night will apply to tipped workers, as written, in apparent contradiction to what city officials intended. The ordinance is set to take effect Jan. 1, 2016. The outcome for tipped workers is the result of the somewhat confusing […]
minimum wage
Posted inMaine
LePage’s office releases 2 emails to show seniors fear minimum wage hike
In April, Gov. Paul LePage stood up at a monthly breakfast forum and told the crowd that seniors had demanded he stop the minimum wage from going up. They wrote him emails, he said, and in these missives they shared their fears that if the minimum wage rose, they wouldn’t be able to go out […]
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Posted inBusiness, sj-web
Maine House blocks bill that would prevent minimum wage increases
AUGUSTA — Gov. Paul LePage’s effort to keep Bangor and Portland from raising the minimum wage for workers inside their city limits suffered a blow Monday when the House of Representatives rejected the bill. The Democrat-controlled House voted 83-60, without debate, to block LD 1361. The bill would prevent any municipality in the state from […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Middle-class economics spoken here
I want to invite people to attend a Baldacci Spaghetti Supper beginning at 5 p.m. on Friday, June 26, at the Elks Lodge, 1675 Lisbon Road in Lewiston. Noted local and statewide speakers will discuss the minimum wage and middle-class economics. The dinner will be an opportunity for local and state leaders to celebrate unity […]
Posted inMaine, sj-web
Legislature kills proposed Maine minimum wage increase
AUGUSTA — A bill that would have raised the state’s $7.50 per hour minimum wage has been defeated in the Maine Legislature. The bill died Friday because the Democratic-controlled House and Republican-led Senate couldn’t agree on it. The House supported a version that would’ve raised the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2018. The Senate backed […]
Posted inBusiness, sj-web
Minimum wage increase makes it through Maine House
AUGUSTA — The Maine House of Representatives has supported a bill that would raise the state’s $7.50 minimum wage to $9.50 by 2018. The Democratic-controlled House voted 81-66 to give initial approval to Democratic Rep. Dillon Bates’ bill on Monday. It would raise the minimum wage to $8 in October. It would then go up […]
Posted inBusiness, sj-web
Raising minimum wage advocates start petition drive
PORTLAND — Advocates for a higher minimum wage in Maine are starting a drive to collect signatures to get a wage increase on the 2016 ballot. Mainers for Fair Wages started their Portland-area signature collection on Thursday. The liberal Maine People’s Alliance and the Maine AFL-CIO submitted paperwork about the drive to the state in […]
Posted inOp-Eds
Effects of minimum wage hike open to debate
WASHINGTON — The minimum wage — long relegated to the sidelines in the war against poverty and inequality — is back in the game. Los Angeles has just decreed that by 2020 the city’s minimum should rise in steps to $15 an hour, a 67 percent increase over California’s minimum of $9. Previously, San Francisco […]
Posted inLetters
J. Kieffer: Road paved with good intentions
Here we go again, talking about raising the minimum wage. I understand that the intention is to help those at the very bottom of the wage scale, but I don’t see how raising the minimum wage will accomplish the intended goal. The people who are paid minimum wage are generally teenagers and adults who lack […]
Posted inBusiness, sj-web
LePage says raising state’s minimum wage will hurt elderly
PORTLAND — Gov. Paul LePage told a Portland audience Tuesday morning his reason for submitting a bill to prohibit municipal minimum wage increases in places like Portland and Bangor, which are considering such a proposal, is because higher mandated minimum wages anywhere in Maine would harm older residents. “The reason for that is that raising […]