Live from Maryland—a Living Wage

by Mike Hall, May 9, 2007

Maryland is the first state in the nation with a living wage law. Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) yesterday signed the new law that requires government service contractors to guarantee:

…that a full day’s work earns a full day’s pay….What this bill simply says is, “If you’re working on a contract funded by the people of Maryland, we are going to treat you in a fair and just way so you can put food on the table for your family after a day’s work.”

The new law sets minimum wages for employees of government contractors at $11.30 an hour in the Baltimore-Washington area and $8.50 an hour in the rest of the state.

A living wage helps to ensure low-wage workers and their families can live above the poverty level. Since 1994, more than 140 communities have enacted living wage laws, which cover a wide range of workers—municipal employees, those working for city and county contractors, health care workers and college and university employees.

Earlier this year, Revere, Mass., and Memphis, Tenn., approved living wage laws for city workers and workers whose employers contract with the cities. In April, we told you how college students and worker activists at Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts are mobilizing to win living wages on their campuses. (For more information, visit ACORN’s Living Wage Resource Center.)

In other living wage news, a California Superior Court judge on May 2 blocked enforcement of a living wage law that would effect about 3,500 workers in 13 hotels near Los Angeles International Airport. Originally passed in November 2006, business groups fought to rescind the measure and forced the Los Angles City Council to scrap the wage law. The council then passed a second living wage ordinance that the judge ruled violates a state law banning the introduction of new ordinance within a year of revocation of a similar measure.

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans continue to hold a federal minimum wage increase hostage—119 days and counting.  The U.S. House passed a bill Jan. 10 that would have boosted the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25, without another round of tax breaks for business. Senate Republicans filibustered the House bill for a week in January, using Senate rules to force minimum wage backers to win 60 votes instead of a simple 51 majority and then killing the House bill on Jan. 24.

The wage increase, along some small business tax breaks, was included in a supplemental spending bill, opposed by most congressional Republicans, that President Bush vetoed May 1.

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