For Immediate Release: Wednesday, December 7, 2016
Montgomery Council Committee to
discuss proposal on Wed., Dec. 7, to
increase minimum wage to $15 per hour
ROCKVILLE, Md., December 6, 2016—The Montgomery County Council’s Health and Human Services (HHS) Committee at 9:45 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 7, will hold a worksession on proposed Bill 12-16 that would gradually increase the County minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2020.
The HHS Committee, which is chaired by Councilmember George Leventhal and includes Councilmembers Roger Berliner and Craig Rice, will meet in the Seventh Floor Hearing Room of the Council Office Building at 100 Maryland Ave. in Rockville.
The meeting will be will be televised live by County Cable Montgomery (CCM). The channel can be viewed on Cable Channels 996 (high definition) and 6 (standard definition) on Comcast; Channels 1056 (HD) and 6 (SD) on RCN; and Channel 30 on Verizon. The meeting also will be available live via streaming through the Council web site at http://tinyurl.com/z9982v8 .
The HHS Committee will be meeting for the third time on Bill 12-16 that would increase the County minimum wage incrementally beyond the current legislation that will increase the County minimum wage to $11.50 per hour by July 2017. Councilmember Marc Elrich is the lead sponsor of the bill. Councilmembers Leventhal, Tom Hucker, Nancy Navarro and Hans Riemer are co-sponsors.
At the first HHS committee meeting on Bill 12-16, the sentiment was to gather additional information on the impact of the current legislation regarding the minimum wage before making a recommendation on Bill 12-16.
Bill 12-16 would extend the incremental increases set in County law to go up to $15 per hour effective July 1, 2020. Under the bill's transition provisions, the County minimum wage would increase to $12.50 in 2018, $13.75 in 2019 and $15 in 2020. Additionally, the bill would require, beginning in 2021, annual adjustments to the minimum wage by the annual average increase, if any, in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPIW) for the previous calendar year.
There is a nationwide effort to increase the minimum wage at the federal, state and local levels to $15 per hour, which has thus far had some success.
The District of Columbia enacted a law in June increasing the minimum wage to $15 by 2020. California and New York have enacted statewide laws that will increase the minimum wage for at least some workers to $15 per hour over a period of years. In the November 2016 election, voters in Maine, Arizona and Colorado all voted to increase the minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020, and Washington State voters approved a raise to $13.50 an hour by that year. In Arizona, voters in the City of Flagstaff approved an additional minimum wage initiative to increase the minimum wage in Flagstaff to $15 an hour in 2021 and index the minimum wage to increases in cost-of-living thereafter.
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Release ID: 16-383