DeLeo Eyes Biz Relief As Part Of Effort To Boost Minimum Wage
With the push for a minimum wage hike getting its loudest support in the Senate, House Speaker Robert DeLeo says he may want to couple any hike in the wage floor with reforms to unemployment insurance paid by businesses so that both workers and employers will benefit under the bill.
After years of votes to freeze unemployment insurance rates paid by businesses, lawmakers in recent months have ramped up talk about the need for permanent reforms to the UI system. DeLeo met Monday with House Labor and Workforce Development Committee Chair Rep. Thomas Conroy to talk about a "combination of the two" - a minimum wage hike and unemployment insurance reforms - he told the News Service.
"What I'm looking at, what we're working on is the possibility of working on a minimum wage in addition to taking a look at unemployment insurance," DeLeo said. "In addition to the minimum wage, I think maybe we have to change some of the burdens that businesses presently face in Massachusetts."
DeLeo's desire to tackle unemployment insurance rates at the same time as a hike to the minimum wage comes after the months-long debate earlier this year about raising taxes for transportation that led to higher cigarette and gas levies. Heading into an election year, lawmakers abruptly reversed course on a software services sales tax that had been approved after facing stiff criticism from the technology business community, and voted to repeal the tax.
In Massachusetts, there are nearly half a million workers who earn the $8 an hour minimum wage or very close to it. Approximately 94,000 people earn the minimum wage and around 398,000 earn between $8.25 to $11 per hour, according to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, which estimated 73 percent of minimum wage earners are 20 years old or older.
Should Democratic leaders produce a comprehensive bill, it's uncertain whether Republicans will be willing to work with House and Senate leaders on reforms they've long sought, or try to use the push to increase mandatory wages as a cudgel against Democrats leading into the 2014 election cycle.
In June, House Minority Leader Bradley Jones said any discussion on increasing the minimum wage from its current level of $8 per hour "must include, in part, serious consideration of substantial reforms to our unemployment insurance system, as well as due attention to the elimination of the outdated practice of paying retail employees time and a half for work on Sundays."
To bring policies here in line with those in other states, businesses have long called for increasing the threshold for benefit eligibility and reducing the amount of time unemployed workers can collect benefits.
Small business owners argue they cannot afford to pay higher wages and continue to hire new employees. While Massachusetts' minimum wage remains 75 cents higher than the national $7.25 base rate, other states are moving toward higher wages as the cost of living in place like the Northeast increases.
Connecticut and New York are both phasing in minimum wage increases over the next couple of years to $9 per hour, while California is now on course for a hike to $10 per hour.
"The chair's been talking to a lot of different parties to come up with a comprehensive package that deals with the minimum wage on one side and the UI on the other so we have an employer-dash-employee piece of legislation that can be beneficial to both. Whether right now we're going to be there or not, I don't know," DeLeo said.
While he said he does not have a wage figure in mind, DeLeo said, "It is my desire to get it done. But right now, until I'm comfortable in terms of what we can and can't do, I wouldn't want to make a commitment. But it is on my radar."
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