Maine, Portland minimum wages jump on Jan. 1

Jan. 2—The brand new 12 months brings a present to low-wage employees in Maine.

The state’s minimal wage jumped from $12.75 to $13.80 an hour on Jan. 1, and in Portland, the minimal elevated from $13 to $14 an hour. Minimal wage employees clocking 40 hours every week below the brand new state minimal will earn an additional $42 weekly, and full-time employees within the metropolis will earn an additional $40 every week.

It’s unclear what number of employees this can have an effect on — many companies have already raised hourly wages for a lot of positions to attempt to compete in a labor market by which staffing shortages have made it tough to fill many roles.

However James Myall, an financial coverage analyst for the Maine Middle for Financial Coverage, stated the will increase are essential, even when most Maine employees are already incomes properly above the mandated state minimal, not to mention the federal minimal wage of $7.25 an hour.

The state’s minimal wage relies on a regional measure of the price of residing. The 8.2% state wage improve and $1 an hour improve in Portland will assist minimal wage earners cowl housing, heating, meals and gasoline prices that rose considerably final 12 months as inflation soared to ranges not seen in many years, Myall stated.

The locally-owned Sea Canine Brewing Co. was promoting some jobs Friday on the 2022 state minimal of $12.75 an hour, and that elevated Sunday. However a lot of the firm’s employees have been making greater than that already, stated Emma Downey, supervisor of the Sea Canine Brewing Co.’s pub on Western Avenue in South Portland. Sea Canine Brewing has 11 areas in Maine, New Hampshire and Florida.

Downey stated the corporate had already been growing wages due to the labor scarcity — dishwashers sometimes earn $17 to $18 an hour and cooks $22 to $23 an hour. Most eating places, together with the nationwide chains that Sea Canine competes with, are paying the identical wages and Downey hopes potential employees will favor to take care of a smaller, locally-owned firm than a nationwide chain.

Some employees already making above the state or metropolis minimal will nonetheless get a pay hike this month as a result of their hourly wage will increase when the authorized minimal does.

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Michael Zeigler, who works at a Circle Ok in Saco, stated he will get paid $4 an hour greater than the state minimal wage. He stated he is completely satisfied for any minimal wage employees getting a pay hike as a result of rising costs imply it is laborious to make ends meet, even for these incomes greater than the minimal.

However Amanda Tarbox, a cashier at Bob & Mike’s Mini Mart in Saco, stated she thinks growing the minimal wage is unfair to staff who’ve stayed in a single job and labored their means as much as earn larger pay.

“It is unfair to individuals who have been there for some time,” she stated. “I do not make minimal wage, however I labored my means up.”

Tarbox stated that so far as she is aware of, everybody at Bob & Mike’s makes greater than the state minimal. She declined to say what she is paid.

Portland’s minimal wage is larger than the state’s, however that hole has shrunk. Voters in 2020 permitted growing the minimal by a greenback an hour annually, topping out at $15 an hour in 2024.

The Portland minimal may also apply to metropolis employees, metropolis spokesman Mo Puia confirmed Friday. As a result of the minimal wage was set by way of referendum, metropolis authorities is not required to observe it, however Metropolis Corridor is taking that step voluntarily, Puia stated.

Growing “the minimal wage is a kind of issues that has persistently had approval,” stated Myall, the financial coverage analyst.

Metropolis voters in November rejected an effort to extend the minimal wage much more, as much as $18 an hour by 2025.

However Myall stated he thinks that initiative failed as a result of the proposal additionally referred to as for eliminating the “tipped minimal wage,” which permits employers in service business jobs — eating places and bars, as an illustration — to rely a part of an worker’s suggestions towards their hourly wage.

In different phrases, if an worker is meant to make a minimal wage of $13.80, an employer can rely as much as $6.90 an hour of the worker’s suggestions towards assembly that minimal. If the proposal — Query D on the November metropolis poll — had handed, employers would have needed to pay at the very least the total metropolis minimal wage, and staff would nonetheless have been in a position to preserve all their suggestions. Some tipped employees opposed Query D, fearing their suggestions would go down if their minimal base pay went up.

Nonetheless, Myall stated, Maine voters’ backing for elevating minimal wages stays sturdy and is particularly essential at a time when some firms are racking up report income, no matter inflation.

“It is essential that a few of that goes right down to the employees,” he stated.

Some lawmakers in recent times have launched unsuccessful makes an attempt within the Legislature to decrease the minimal wage, arguing that larger labor prices harm Maine companies that compete with these in different states, Myall stated.

Fifteen states observe the federal minimal wage of $7.25 an hour, the place it has been since 2009. That is the longest hole between will increase within the federal minimal wage for the reason that regulation that permits Congress to set the minimal was permitted in 1938.

Maine, and Portland, have among the many highest minimal wages within the nation, in keeping with the latest information from the federal Division of Labor. Washington, D.C., has a minimal wage of $16.10 per hour, Washington state’s is $14.49, Massachusetts’ is $14.25 and California and Connecticut have a $14 per hour mimimum.