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 Baltimore has long been a leader on living and minimum wage issues, the risks and uncertainties of local action alone are significantly higher than they would be for Maryland as a whole.
The best way to ensure that more Baltimore, and Maryland, workers are helped rather than harmed by a minimum wage increase is to do it at the state level. Maryland lawmakers should be applauded for their recent efforts to make up for years of neglecting a minimum wage that has shrunk in purchasing power over time; but their efforts haven’t yet gone far enough to ensure that workers can support themselves and their families. A further increase in the state minimum wage to $15 an hour is needed to meaningfully shrink the ranks of the working poor and let all Marylanders share in our state’s increasing prosperity.
Now, therefore, be it resolved by the City Council of Baltimore, That the Council calls 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.
And be it further resolved, That a copy of this Resolution be sent to the Governor, the Honorable Chairs and Members of the Baltimore City House and Senate Delegations to the Maryland General Assembly, the President of the Maryland Senate, the Maryland House Speaker, the Mayor, and the Mayor’s Legislative Liaison to the City Council.