Introduced by: Councilmember Welch
A Resolution Entitled
A Council Resolution concerning
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Request for State Action - $15 Statewide Minimum Wage
For the purpose of calling on the Maryland General Assembly to enact, and the Governor to sign, legislation establishing a statewide $15 minimum wage to ensure that all Maryland workers can share in the benefits of our economic recovery.
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Recitals
There is a general consensus that, today, individuals working full-time minimum wage jobs are not being paid enough to support themselves or their families, and that this is an inequitable and unsustainable situation. In America, a full time worker simply should not need government assistance to be able to put food on the table and a roof over their family’s heads.
Most economists who have studied the issue have found that statewide minimum wage increases are an effective way to address this problem without increasing unemployment or harming the broader economy. However, the evidence regarding the effects of more localized minimum wage increases is much less certain. There is reason to believe that localities within a state with higher labor costs than the rest of the state do in fact suffer economically, and local minimum wage increases can have a more pronounced negative impact on local unemployment, paradoxically hurting some of the low-income workers they’re designed to help.
All Baltimore workers deserve to be paid well enough to support themselves and their families. A $15 minimum wage would go a long way toward accomplishing this goal. But it is not just Baltimore workers who deserve to make what they are worth. And, although Baltimo...
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