The Massachusetts Senate recently voted to increase the minimum wage from $8 to $11, which would give the state the highest minimum wage in the country.
The bill passed by a vote of 32-7 and will now head to the House. From there the bill would head to Governor Deval Patrick’s desk to sign.
According to The Boston Globe, State Senator Marc R. Pacheco, a Democrat from Taunton, said the bill is “long overdue,” and he sponsored the bill in the Senate.
The bill would allow for the minimum wage to adjust for inflation. According to the Globe, it “would increase to $9 an hour and an additional dollar each year until 2015.”
Massachusetts is currently a state with one of the highest minimum wages in the country, according to USA Today. At $8 an hour, it is 75 cents above the federal minimum wage. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama is supporting a Senate bill that would raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10, according to the article.
UMass sophomore Matt Merlino said he “has worked in small food service jobs for years, making $9 per hour.” He currently works at the Hatch and he supports the minimum wage raise.
UMass senior Alex El Helou, who works at the library, thinks “it’s awesome” that the minimum wage could increase. El Helou, originally from New York, found that Massachusetts’ $8 minimum wage is already much higher than New York’s $7.25 minimum wage.
“It’s good because the cost of living has risen,” El Helou said. “It’s hard for people to keep up.” He went on to say that students living off campus would benefit the most because “they have more up-front bills to pay, like rent and groceries.”
One concern that was raised during the voting process was how the cost of living would be affected, especially if cost of living would simply rise with the minimum wage. Massachusetts is currently one of the top five states in the country with the highest cost of living, with the flat income tax rate at 5.3 percent, according to bloomberg.com.
UMass sophomore, who works at the library, believes that the cost of living would be unaffected.
“I don’t think living costs would go up too much,” he said
Whether a higher minimum wage is good for the economy is still debated across the country. According to USA Today, the National Employment Law Project (NELP) believes there is a relationship between the declining in the purchasing power of the minimum wage and the growth of income inequality.
The Heritage Foundation, however, supports the idea that if the federal government raises the minimum wage, the various costs of wages and benefits would raise the minimum cost of hiring a worker.
Catherine Ferris can be reached at [email protected].
