Patrick backs minimum wage hike, unemployment reform
Gov. Deval Patrick said Tuesday he thinks it is time to raise the state’s minimum wage, and he likes the idea of updating the unemployment insurance system – two issues that Speaker Robert DeLeo has said he would like to link.
“I like the idea of raising the minimum wage. I think it’s time. And I like the idea of updating our unemployment insurance issues. And I think there’s probably a place in between where many of the representatives of business are, and some of the representatives of labor are, or have been, that is a good compromise,” Patrick told a group of reporters Tuesday afternoon.
The state Senate passed a bill in November that would boost the minimum wage from $8 an hour to $11 by 2016. Senate leaders plan to tackle unemployment insurance in a separate bill early this year, but Senate President Therese Murray has resisted calls to link the two issues in a single bill.
DeLeo said he does not want to raise the minimum wage without reforming unemployment insurance paid by businesses.
For the past several years, lawmakers have frozen statutory increases in the unemployment insurance rate. Though DeLeo has not been specific in his desire for reforms, some business groups want the state to curtail the number of weeks someone can collect benefits, down from the current 30 weeks.
Patrick said he has heard the concern that businesses pay a lot for unemployment insurance. Workers in Massachusetts are entitled to a few more weeks of unemployment, Patrick said, but he pointed out that the number of people utilizing the benefit was consistent with the national average until the recession.
“Obviously, we’ve had some extreme circumstances in recent economic times,” he said.
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