MD lawmakers eyeing legislation to raise minimum wage to $25

MARYLAND – Maryland Senate Bill 886, known in the House of Delegates as House Bill 1229, would gradually raise the minimum wage to $25 an hour over the course of five to seven years.

However, opponents say that it could drastically impact the food service industry by eliminating tips.

“Workers have come out against it, it upends the tipping system,” says Rebekah Paxton, Research Director for the Employment Policies Institute. “It makes it harder for for restaurants to stay open and keep their staff employed.”

Despite these concerns, organization One Fair Wage, the main proponent of the legislation, says the bills would not get rid of tips.

“We do not want to eliminate tips, the bill does not call to eliminate tips,” says Nikki M. G. Cole, coordinator for Maryland Living Wage for All Coalition. “The truth is that most people don’t even realize when they dine out that tipped workers aren’t getting a fair, full minimum wage.”

However, local tipped workers like Vince O’Malley, a bartender at downtown Salisbury’s The Brick Room, expressed some doubts over how it would benefit tipped workers statewide.

“It will affect service because with if our labor is going up, then I mean, our cost is going to have to go up,” he tells WMDT.

Though O’Malley says he’s worried the legislation would negatively impact tipped workers at small locations, he says there’s still hope for the bill, as long as it doesn’t have a blanket approach to all service workers.

“Minimum wage [at] big box stores? Yes,” says O’Malley. “The little like mom and pop shops, the local places? It’s going to be hard for them to meet that kind of demand. I agree 25 an hour for the job, but depending on the job.”

To learn more about this legislation and its movement through the Maryland General Assembly, click here.