The legislature’s Committee on Labor held a public hearing on Tuesday for a bill from Rep. Valli Geiger (D-Rockland) to change the minimum wage to a living wage based on MIT’s calculator, which would set Portland’s wage at over $25 per hour.

“I have observed that Maine has seemed to take a perverse pride in being a low-wage state, however, this has created a problem that we are now forced to find a solution for. We have consistently had the lowest median income of New England states,” said Rep. Geiger.

Geiger did not elaborate on how or where she observed “perverse pride” in Maine’s low wages, a claim that would seem to undermine Democrats’ claims to have boosted Maine’s economy over the last six years.

Geiger’s testimony pointed to the growing cost of living, particularly the growing cost of housing in the state, but appeared to blame businesses for Mainers’ inability to afford necessities, and proposed a massive increase to the minimum wage as a solution.

“We have allowed decades of Mainers to struggle on low wages and face the challenges of applying for local or state assistance to survive. These companies are intentionally paying their employees a wage they cannot live on,” she added.

She suggested that the various welfare programs providing low-income Mainers with various forms of assistance are, in effect, just subsidizing the companies that allegedly refuse to pay their employees a living wage.

“Who is Maine subsidizing? Is it Maine people who, despite working one or more jobs, still don’t make a living wage, or are we subsidizing employers whose business plan depends on underpaying workers and having taxpayers subsidize those same workers in order for them to eat, rent, and live in a heated place,” said Geiger.

Geiger’s bill, LD 853, drew co-sponsorships from five Democrats.

The bill would divide the state into three regions: Coastal, Northern, and Portland Metropolitan. The bill would assign the wage increase based on the MIT Living Wage Calculator’s results for one adult with no children as of January 1, 2025, and would go into effect in January of next year.

According to Geiger’s testimony, the 2024 minimum hourly living wage for the Northern region was $20.67, the Coastal region wage was $22.04, and the Portland wage was $23.74. The wages would then be updated every year to reflect any increases in the cost of living. A review of the calculator reveals that Portland’s living wage has already increased drastically, reaching $25.11 as of February 10.

The state’s current minimum wage is just $14.65 per hour, though under the current law, it increases every year based on the increases in the cost of living.

“I am well aware that this is a heavy lift, but to avoid doing so is to see Maine become a true vacation land, with seasonal workers, seasonal homes, and fewer and fewer year-round working residents,” said Geiger.

She did not seriously address, at any point in her testimony, the potential harms caused by such a drastic increase in the minimum wage, initially brushing them off as “a heavy lift,” though she did acknowledge that the cost of goods and services would increase when asked by the committee.

She responded to that concern by claiming that the COVID-era expansion of unemployment benefits was a success for average Mainers, and that they often made more on unemployment than they did at their jobs.

Her answer did not seem to propose any solution to the problem that she acknowledged.

Throughout her testimony, Geiger repeatedly called out alleged corporate greed as the main cause of low wages, suggesting that it is the only reason teenaged Walmart baggers across the state aren’t hired at well over $20 hourly.

She did not address the harm that could be done to local businesses if they were forced to drastically increase wages. In states that have adopted price controls for labor along the lines of what Geiger is proposing, there have been perverse, unintended, but usually predictable consequences.

A review of California’s 2024 minimum wage increase to $16.50 generally and $20 for fast-food workers had disastrous results. The fast-food worker wage increase led to increased prices, and the loss of between 5,000 and 10,500 jobs just in anticipation of the increase, even before it went into effect.

Geiger’s bill would bring all Maine wages even above California’s catastrophic fast-food wage, likely heralding mass layoffs rather than a new era of prosperity and high pay for the state.

Despite Geiger’s utopian claims, no one testified in favor of the bill in person, and only one Mainer submitted written testimony in support.

“It only makes sense that workers are paid in a way realistic to the cost of living, or else we’re stuck in the cost of simply surviving,” said Abby Stevens of Lewiston.

Dillon Murray testified against the bill on behalf of the Maine Department of Labor, arguing that the state’s current minimum wage system already functions well.

“We believe Maine’s current statewide minimum wage framework as approved by voters and provides a reasonable and effective approach. It ensures stability, predictability, and fairness for both workers and businesses across the state,” said Murray.

He also expressed concerns about the living wage calculator being used as a benchmark in Maine law for the minimum wage.

Jake Lachance also opposed the bill, speaking on behalf of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce.

“Seeing how many businesses went out of business for rising costs and costs of doing business was I think really alarming to a lot of people, and so I think this would only exacerbate that,” said Lachance.

He also pointed out that this bill would give Maine, by far, the highest minimum wage of any state in the country.

Currently, no work session has been scheduled for the bill.

On the same day, the committee also held a hearing on LD 206, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Timberlake (R-Androscoggin), that would remove the current provision allowing an annual minimum wage increase based on cost-of-living costs in an attempt to preserve small businesses that may struggle to afford the mandated wage increases.

Read the Maine Wire’s previous reporting on both bills here.