Minimum wage increase to $15 across Maryland

SALISBURY, MD. – Thanks to Governor Wes Moore, Minimum wage will be going up to fifteen dollars an hour sooner than expected, but is more money a good thing? That depends on who you ask.

One Salisbury resident said “it’s a livable wage.”

Fifteen dollars an hour minimum wage will help unskilled laborers, like those in the fast food, service and retail industry make more affordable wages, but with the cost of living and inflation of goods and services going up, it may not be enough.

“You still can’t live off of fifteen dollars an hour by yourself.”

You’re not gonna pay rent, get food, put gas in your car and car insurance.”

“That’s not enough, you’re still going to need a roommate, but it’s great,” Salisbury resident Mike Ronig said. “It’s going to put money in the local economy and everything else.”

Ronig says that with inflation, the US dollar is not worth what it used to be.

“Inflation is inflation,” Ronig said. “A dollar forty years ago is twenty dollars now.”

Another local worker thinks that it can help young adults trying to live on their own.

“It can definitely be a positive. It can help people get established in the world if they are looking to move out of a parents house or anything like that.”

Local business owners in Salisbury are trying to adapt to the increase in pay. President of Together Café Vicente Hernandez says it has been quite the hurdle.

“I raised my kids up to fifteen a while ago just so I could see what that would be like, especially since the shift is going to happen in the winter time which is a slower time for me.”

He says it can be difficult to find reliable staffing for jobs in the service industry.

“People never wanted to work in those fields to begin with it’s just what was available when the times schedules that work for them, but to be able to get a wage that’s more livable definitely raises the esteem.”