Republican lawmakers have proposed creating a minimum “student wage” in Maine, allowing employers to pay some high school students a lower rate than is currently mandated by state law.

Under this legislation, students could be paid at a rate half that of the current state minimum wage — or $7.33 an hour — for at least two years while they are in high school.

Once students graduate from high school — regardless of how long they have been employed — they must be paid Maine’s standard minimum wage of $14.65 an hour.

LD 112 — An Act to Promote Opportunities by Establishing a Student Wage — was sponsored by Rep. Mathew David McIntyre (R-Lowell) and cosponsored by Sen. Dick Bradstreet (R-Kennebec) and Rep. David W. Boyer Jr. (R-Poland).

Click Here to Read the Full Text of LD 112

According to data from the National Council of State Legislatures, Maine now has one of the highest minimum wages in the country at $14.65 an hour.

Critics of minimum wage increases often note, among other things, the impact that higher minimum hourly rates have on business’ ability and willingness to hire younger and often less experienced workers for positions that are usually temporary or entry-level.

Given this — and the language used in the title of LD 112 — supporters of implementing a lower minimum wage for students would likely contend that such a policy would help increase students’ job opportunities.

A 2018 study from the IZA Journal of Labor Policy supports this belief, demonstrating that labor force participation rates are significantly higher among young people in countries with established youth minimum wages compared to those with a uniform minimum wage.

Opponents of a discounted minimum wage for full-time students, on the other hand, have argued that these lower rates “discriminate” against certain workers based solely on their age or “student status,” despite that they are often “performing the same work as adults.”

“Modern youth sub-minimum wages are a persistent relic of employers’ past and present interest in children as pool of exploitable, low-wage workers,” argued 2024 article from the Economic Policy Institute.

Paying a sub-minimum wage to full-time students is permitted by federal law, subject to certain limitations.

The federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) allows employers to hire full-time students, regardless of age, for an hourly wage up to 15 percent lower than the $7.25 federal minimum wage, or $6.16 per hour.

Beginning January 1, 2025, Maine’s minimum wage was increased to $14.65 per hour, meaning that if LD 112 were to be approved, employers would be able to hire high school students for as low as $7.33 per hour — $1.17 over the minimum student wage set by the federal government.

Currently, Maine’s minimum wage is indexed to the cost of living, meaning that it is automatically increased on January 1 of each year in accordance with the cost of living as of August the previous year, rounded to the nearest five cents.

A group of Republican lawmakers introduced legislation earlier this month, however, that would roll back these provisions.

If passed, this bill would solidify the current minimum wage of $14.65 and repeal the cost-of-living adjustment going forward, meaning that any future increases would need to be manually proposed and approved by lawmakers.

The bill to establish a discounted student wage will now go before Maine Legislature’s Labor Committee where it will receive a public hearing and be more closely considered by state lawmakers.