In 2015, voters in Portland rejected a referendum to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by a 58 to 42 percent margin.
In the 2020 election, however, 62 percent of Portlanders voted in favor of a $15 wage, and similar results across the state and country signal a broader shift in favor of higher minimum wages.
The minimum wage initiative was put forward by a local, grassroots group People First Portland. The measure also grants time-and-a-half hazard pay during emergencies, although the implementation of that portion of the initiative is in question after Portland Mayor Kate Snyder said the city would not enforce it until 2022, a decision People First Portland said is at odds with the ordinance and contrary to the information provided to voters about the policy by both supporters and opponents.
The passage of the minimum wage increase in Portland comes as three other progressive initiatives put forward by People First Portland were also approved by voters last week.
And it wasn’t just Portland where voters approved a higher minimum wage. In Rockland, a ballot measure to raise that city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2024 passed with support from nearly 66 percent of voters.
Beyond Maine, fair wage advocates also won a victory in Florida, where voters approved a $15 minimum wage increase by 2026 even as President Donald Trump defeated President-elect Joe Biden — who supports a $15 minimum wage — in the state.
From defeat to victory in Portland
Ethan Strimling, former mayor of Portland and a volunteer with People First Portland, said the biggest difference between the 2015 minimum wage campaign and the 2020 referendum is the number of people who voted in those elections.
Just under 19,000 people voted on the 2015 Portland minimum wage ballot question in what was an off-year election. In contrast, over 40,000 people voted on the 2020 minimum wage ballot initiative in an election that featured a presidential contest and a high-profile U.S. Senate race in Maine.
Strimling said higher voter participation makes a huge difference when it comes to progressive priorities like increasing the minimum wage.
“What we understand is that Portland is a progressive city. And when more people vote, you get more progressive outcomes,” he said, noting that a slate of progressive candidates were also elected to the Portland City Council last week.
Strimling added that another factor in the minimum wage victory this time around is that the initiative was connected to a series of other ballot measures. He noted that in 2015, the minimum wage initiative wasn’t put forward in conjunction with any other measure. In contrast, this year’s minimum wage initiative was introduced along with a rent control measure, a ban on facial surveillance technology, a local Green New Deal measure, and restrictions on short-term rentals — the only initiative that didn’t pass.
“We had a real package that told a story,” Strimling said. “And most got around 60 percent of the vote, other than the short-term rentals. People really saw those four … as what the city needed.”
Part of the story the initiatives told, Strimling said, is that economic inequality has skyrocketed around the country, with Portland being no exception.
“I think income inequality is a fundamental factor in our winning all of these referenda,” he said. “I think it is absolutely a part of why people support minimum wage, and it’s absolutely a part of why people support rent control.”
Additional minimum wage victory in Maine
Portland wasn’t alone in voting to raise its minimum wage in last week’s election, as the city of Rockland approved an increase to $15 an hour as well.
Nathan Davis, the city councilor in Rockland who proposed the local initiative, said the fact that the 2020 election was set to have such high voter turnout was a factor in his decision to put the measure on the ballot.
“I knew we had a big election coming up with big voter turnout likely,” Davis said. “And I knew that Portland had their minimum wage referendum and other referenda.”
Davis added that the continued pandemic and increased gentrification in Rockland were other reasons he felt the measure was needed now.
“I had always intended to propose some solutions to these issues but that really convinced me that we needed to move faster,” he said.
Looking forward, Davis said the large margins of victory for minimum wage increases in Maine make it clear there is a broad mandate for higher wages and demonstrates that low-wage workers have not been adequately paid.
“The lesson here is that people see a very obvious need in Rockland, but I’d venture to say in society as a whole, to simply take care of people, to make sure that people have the resources they need just to meet the basic necessities of life,” he said.
A sign from the successful 2016 campaign to raise the minimum wage in Maine
Mainers have agreed with that line of thinking in the past. Before the minimum wage victories in Portland and Rockland in 2020, 55 percent of voters approved a ballot initiative put forward by Maine People’s Alliance (of which Beacon is a project) and other groups in 2016 to raise the state’s minimum wage to $12 an hour.
Support for $15 minimum wage growing around the country
Building on past successes, such as the one in Maine in 2016, support for raising the minimum wage has only continued to increase around the country.
While minimum wage increases have long been popular, the margins have grown in the last couple of years. For example, in a 2016 Pew Research Center survey, 52 percent of voters favored a $15 minimum wage with 46 percent opposed. By 2019, support for a $15 minimum wage had grown to 67 percent with just 33 percent opposed, according to a Pew Research Center survey from that year.
A 2020 poll from Data for Progress shows a similar rate of support, with 68 percent saying they supported a $15 minimum wage and 31 percent opposed. Notably, along with Democrats, a majority of Republicans (59 percent) and independents (57 percent) indicated support for a $15 minimum wage in that poll.
The growing support for minimum wage increases has also been demonstrated by wins in conservative states. The victory in Florida last week came on the heels of votes in 2018 in deep-red Missouri and Arkansas to raise the minimum wage in those states.
Tsedeye Gebreselassie, an attorney at the National Employment Law Project — which advocates for low-wage workers and those who are unemployed — said those types of results show that minimum wage increases, at least among voters, have become fairly bipartisan.
“When minimum wage is on the ballot and voters have a chance to vote directly on whether or not they want to raise it, it just overwhelmingly passes almost always, even in states where legislatures and the electorate may be red or purple,” Gebreselassie said.
Gebreselassie said one reason for that widespread support could be that surviving on the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25 and was last increased in 2009, is extremely difficult.
The living wage in the U.S. for a family of four is $16.54 an hour, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Calculator.
Gebreselassie added that the COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on the fact that many Americans are just barely getting by, further demonstrating the need for increased wages.
Jonathan Schleifer, executive director of the Fairness Project — which works with local groups to put progressive measures on state ballots — said in this politically polarized time, minimum wage increases are something that unify Americans, noting that most such initiatives win with large majorities.
“You just don’t win 60 percent of the vote on very many issues in this country anymore,” he said. “And if you want to … bring the nation together, increasing the minimum wage would be a really good place to start.”
Top photo: Members of People First Portland urging voters to vote yes on the five referenda, including raising the minimum wage. | Image via Maine DSA
"local" - Google News
November 12, 2020 at 07:51PM
https://ift.tt/3phY2fn
High voter turnout, increased inequality spur local minimum wage victories - mainebeacon.com
"local" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2WoMCc3
https://ift.tt/2KVQLik
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "High voter turnout, increased inequality spur local minimum wage victories - mainebeacon.com"
Post a Comment