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 […]
minimum wage
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 […]
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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 […]
Posted inBusiness, sj-web
LePage backs bill to quash higher municipal minimal wages
AUGUSTA — Gov. Paul LePage is promoting a bill to thwart municipal officials in two of Maine’s largest communities from raising the minimum wage for employers within their city limits. LePage’s bill — LD 1361, An Act to Promote Minimum Wage Consistency — faces preliminary action Tuesday in the Senate, where it will be introduced […]
Posted inBusiness, sj-web
MPA, AFL-CIO start referendum campaign to raise minimum wage
AUGUSTA — Mainers could take to the polls in 2016 to decide whether to raise the state’s minimum wage to $12 per hour by 2020. The referendum campaign, spearheaded by the Maine AFL-CIO and the progressive Maine People’s Alliance, was kicked off Thursday, when the group turned in the signatures necessary to begin the process […]