Grace Palo
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON (WMAL) — Montgomery County will now consider continuing to gradually increase it to $15/hour by 2020, it is currently in the process of slowly raising its minimum wage to $11.50/hour by 2017.
County Council member Marc Elrich (D-At Large) said he expects to introduce the $15-an-hour bill as early as next week. Elrich was the creator of the collaboration by Montgomery, the District and Prince George’s County to gradually raise the minimum to $11.50 in 2013.
Elrich said that the 2013 increase was a vital step, there is now wider recognition that the minimum must be closer to a “living wage.”
Speaking to WMAL Mornings on the Mall Tuesday, Councilman Elrich said “People can’t really live on wages that are below $15 an hour, you don’t make rent, you can’t pay for childcare, you can’t make your basic family needs.”
Elrich said he did not expect difficulty is assembling a majority to pass his bill.
Prince George’s County won’t be joining this new effort to increase the minimum wage further.
California governor signed legislation Monday raising California’s mandatory minimum to $15 an hour by 2022, acting within hours of a similar bill signing in New York.
The debate over whether to boost the minimum wage centers on an issue economists have argued over for years: Does a rising wage lead to job loss, ultimately hurting low-income workers more than it helps?
Elrich told WMAL “I think jobs need to be done that are you there now and I don’t really think that jobs will be lost. There’s other economic studies that say the biggest impact might be a slight slowing in job creation, not so much job loss.”
D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) announced her proposal for a $15 minimum wage at her State of the District address March 22.
Montgomery’s minimum wage is set to rise from $9.55 to $10.75 an hour in July and to $11.50 a year later. A full-time minimum-wage worker earning $15 per hour would have an annual income of about $30,000 — still quite low in a county where the household median is just under $100,000.
Copyright 2016 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (PHOTO: Flickr)
