FIGHT FOR $15

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The Case for Raising the City of Baltimore’s Minimum Wage to $15 by 2020

Advocates in the City of Baltimore have announced a new campaign to raise the City’s minimum wage to $15 by 2020. This campaign pushes forward Baltimore’s historical commitment to a local wage that meets its residents’ needs. It also follows a growing list of cities and counties that are pushing for a $15 minimum wage—a wage high enough to allow workers to meet actual living costs and to begin to reverse the tilt in the City’s economy towards low-paying jobs.

Baltimore First Enacted a Local Minimum Wage in 1964 to Address the Economic Needs of its Workers

The City of Baltimore enacted one of the nation’s first minimum wage ordinances back in 1964 because it found that the federal and Maryland minimum wages were not high enough to enable working persons in the City to maintain a minimal standard of living and that those conditions adversely affected their well-being, as well as the economic and social welfare of residents.

The City continued to raise its minimum wage above the state minimum wage throughout the 1960s, but eventually stopped updating it regularly—with the result that it fell into disuse.

With dozens of cities and counties across the U.S. today raising the minimum wage, this new campaign to increase Baltimore’s minimum wage to $15 will push the City of Baltimore to again recognize and respond to the particular needs of its workers.

A $15 Minimum Wage in the City of Baltimore Could Raise Wages for Approximately 25 Percent of the City’s Wage-Earners and Help Realign Wages with Living Costs

A $15 minimum wage by 2020 could raise pay for up to 80,000 workers—25 percent of the workforce in the City of Baltimore—who currently earn less than that hourly wage.

The Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator estimates that a single worker in the Baltimore/Towson metro area needed to earn $33,994 a year in 2014— approximately $16 per hour—to cover basic living costs. And a single worker supporting a child needed $59,134 annually—translating to approximately $28 per hour. A $15 minimum wage by 2020 would bring many City of Baltimore families much closer to meeting their basic needs.

High numbers of City of Baltimore residents now live in poverty and rely on government assistance. Approximately 24 percent of City of Baltimore residents currently have an income below the poverty level.6 More than one-fifth of City of Baltimore households receive food stamps/SNAP.

In addition, the wage crisis facing low-wage workers has been worsening. A recent NELP report found that real median hourly wages have been declining steadily for all workers and that low-wage workers have been hardest hit. Between 2009 and 2014, real median wages fell by four percent for all occupations—and by 5.7 percent for workers in the bottom 20 percent of earners.

A $15 Minimum Wage Will Benefit the City of Baltimore’s Workers, Residents, and Businesses

More than 200 economists have endorsed a $15 minimum wage at the national level, finding that “raising the federal minimum to $15 an hour by 2020 will be an effective means of improving living standards for low-wage workers and their families and will help stabilize the economy.”

Economic modeling by University of California economists in cities like Los Angeles shows that the benefits of increasing the minimum wage to approximately $15 would substantially outweigh the likely modest costs—and would deliver a $3,200 annual raise for the average affected worker.

Small businesses will likely benefit from a higher minimum wage because low-wage workers tend to spend their increased earnings on basic needs at Main Street businesses that rely on consumer spending.

A $15 minimum wage would likely reduce employee recruitment and training costs for low-wage industries currently plagued by high (and costly) turnover. Turnover rates in the restaurants-and-accommodations sector, for example, exceed 60 percent per year, according to the National Restaurant Association. For home health aides, the turnover rates are 40–65 percent per year.