ANNAPOLIS – Marylanders earning minimum wage would be paid $1 more per hour — about $2,100 more per year for full-time workers — if a bill in the Senate becomes law.
The bill, which was heard by the Senate Finance Committee Thursday, would set Maryland’s minimum wage at $6.15 an hour, rather than the $5.15 that has been federal law since 1997.
Full-time workers earning the current minimum wage make about $10,700 a year. Under the bill, they would earn nearly $12,800.
The bill sponsor, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., D-Calvert, said Maryland workers are going through the second-longest period of “stagnation” in the minimum-wage level in nearly 70 years.
Fifteen states have enacted minimum wage laws above the federal minimum, according to the U.S. Labor Department. If Miller’s bill becomes law, Maryland would be on the lower end of those states, with the same wage rate as Delaware and Florida. Washington state has the highest minimum at $7.35 an hour.
In 2003, about 28,000 — or 2 percent of the approximately 1.3 million Maryland workers paid by the hour — earned at or below minimum wage, according to the Labor Department. Some 439,000 residents earn below the poverty line.
The announcement of the bill touched off another round in the ongoing debate of whether minimum wage laws hurt businesses and lead to job cuts.
Supporters say it will not only help the lowest-paid workers, but it will also push up wages for workers earning more than minimum wage. They also say the buying power of the current minimum wage has fallen as inflation rises.
Opponents say workers earning minimum wage often come from higher-income households, that raising it discourages business from hiring and that it leads to higher prices.
At a Senate Finance Committee hearing, both sides challenged the validity of the other’s arguments.
Advocacy groups for the poor and even some businessmen praised the bill.
“If $40 a week is going to break a small business, that small business is not going to be around much longer anyway,” said Scott Orbach, who runs a business-consulting firm in Bethesda.
Tom Saquella, president of the Maryland Retailers Association, testified against the bill.
“When you get that ripple effect, your workers’ comp costs go up. They go up because they’re based on payroll,” Saquella said, adding that businesses’ Social Security tax payments would increase for the same reason.
Miller said he held the proposed increase to $1 in order to get support from enough Democrats to override any potential veto by Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich.
Ehrlich spokesman Henry Fawell would not comment on any specific legislation that hasn’t landed on the governor’s desk.
But Fawell said that “generally speaking, the governor’s never enthusiastic about a bill that could potentially force employers to lay off employees.”
Last year, Ehrlich vetoed an increase in wages to $10.50 an hour for workers on contract from the state government.
Sen. J. Robert Hooper, R-Harford, is an opponent on the Finance Committee, which is expected to pass the bill next week. He said in an interview later that the bill could be interpreted as a dare to Ehrlich to use his veto power.
If Ehrlich spikes a minimum-wage increase, Hooper said, Democrats in the next gubernatorial election could say the governor “didn’t want to help the low-end people at all.”
But supporters Thursday did not mention political gamesmanship in discussing the proposal.
“The bill’s got a great sponsor, so its chances in the Senate Finance Committee, I would say, are very good,” the committee’s chairman, Thomas Middleton, D-Charles, said at a news conference before the hearing.
The bill also has the support of House Speaker Michael Busch, D-Anne Arundel.
“We’ve spent over two years trying to figure ways to subsidize out-of-state corporations to do business in Maryland,” Busch said. “We put as much time and effort into making sure the working men and women are getting fair reimbursement. We think we’re going in the right direction.”