State’s base wage to rise Minimum going to $5.75 per hour

AUGUSTA – Maine’s minimum-wage earners will get a raise Tuesday.

As of New Year’s Day, the state’s lowest legal wage will increase from $5.15 an hour to $5.75 in the first step of a two-step increase. On Jan. 1, 2003, the hourly minimum increases to $6.25 per hour.

States are allowed to raise their minimum wages above the federal standard, which was last increased by Congress in 1997 to $5.15 an hour.

A proposal to raise Maine’s minimum flew through the Legislature earlier this year after Gov. Angus King’s surprise announcement in March that he would support the measure.

The independent governor had vetoed three earlier minimum-wage increase bills, and in 2000 he used his pocket-veto power to block a bill to hike the $5.15 hourly minimum by 70 cents.

In explaining the administration’s change of heart, Labor Commissioner Valerie Landry said last March that King’s concern that the increase would put the state at a competitive disadvantage to other states had abated.

Neighboring New Hampshire’s minimum wage remains at the $5.15-an-hour federal standard, but Vermont’s is $6.25 an hour, according to the U.S. Labor Department. The Massachusetts rate is $6.75 an hour.

As the Maine proposal was being considered earlier this year, Landry said the governor consistently had looked toward Congress to raise the national base wage. But during this year’s congressional session, Democrats failed to win passage of a minimum-wage increase, one of their priorities.

Maine’s minimum-wage bill was strongly supported by Democratic legislative leaders. Supporters threatened to take their proposal to the voters if King was to reject a wage hike again.

But as the bill was debated, it even drew the support of numerous Republicans, including House Minority Leader Joseph Bruno of Raymond. As the Maine bill neared enactment, King administration officials estimated that about 5,000 workers in the state earned the minimum wage last year. Another 8,000 workers, mostly workers earning tips, were paid less.