Issues of increasing the state minimum wage have gained the attention of Maryland politicians in recent weeks.
As reported in Gazette.net, Montgomery County Councilman Marc Elrich is proposing increasing the Montgomery County’s minimum wage to $12 per hour in a bill that would apply to county businesses. As reported,
Most employers in Montgomery currently must meet the requirements of the federal minimum wage, which since 2009 has been set at $7.25 an hour. The Washington, D.C., metropolitan region is one of the most expensive in the country. According to a report from the Maryland Community Action Partnership cited in a release from Elrich’s office, a single adult in the county would need to make $17.07 per hour to be economically self-sufficient.
Councilman Elrich is quoted in the article as saying, “Montgomery County is a great place to live if you can afford it, but it’s almost impossible for poor people to live here.”
For more information, see the full story in Gazette.net.
Maryland’s Governor Martin O’Malley, Attorney General Doug Gansler and Congressman John Delaney have also voiced support for minimum wage increases on the state and federal levels. According to the Washington Post,
A senior O’Malley administration official said the governor is considering including a minimum-wage bill in a package of initiatives next session aimed at helping the middle class. O’Malley. . .has not settled on the specifics of a bill, according to the official. . .
Additionally, Maryland’s Attorney General Doug Gansler, “is one of the first state-wide elected officials to publicly back legislation to raise the minimum wage for $7.25 to $10 per hour by 2015,” according to a recent story in the Baltimore Sun.
On the federal level, Congressman John Delaney of Maryland has pledged to use personal funds to launch a campaign to raise the federal minimum wage. As reported in the Washington Post,
Delaney, a financier who won election in Maryland’s 6th District last year, said he remains supportive of federal legislation that would raise the minimum wage across the country. A pending bill would increase it from $7.25 to $10.10 by 2015.
For more information, see the full story from the Washington Post and our recent post on Conduit Street,
