From the article:

According to WGME 13, that minimum wage rate for Maine is going to be going up again next year. Well, January 1st, 2023 to be exact. WGME reports that Maine's minimum wage is currently $12.75 per hour. If you work 40 hours a week, that equates to about $26,520 before taxes and insurance.

Beginning January 1, Maine's minimum wage will be going up to $13.80 per hour- more than a dollar more than where it is right now. That means, if you make minimum wage and work a 40 hour job, you could expect to earn about $28,704 before taxes and insurance.

For Mainers who work in service-industry jobs where tips are part of what they make, those employees, beginning on January 1st, will see a base wage increase to $6.90 per hour.

I'd be curious to know how many people are still making minimum wage in this job market (outside of tipped workers), if anyone has the stats for the state on hand. It seems like the market has pulled well ahead of the legislated minimum and isn't really showing any signs of slowing down, especially in the lower pay brackets.

Yeah, no, I haven’t seen a job offering paying this in awhile. Even the stingiest employers are paying 14 an hour by now. They literally would not be able to hire an unemployed guy across the street if they paid any less. Most places are doing 15 at a minimum.

I think there are still plenty of folks who have been making $14/$15 an hour for ages and just don't think anything of it. They'll probably get an indirect boost from the minimum wage increasing.

Edit:

> Maine’s minimum wage will increase to $13.80 to keep up with the cost of living on January 1, thanks to a voter approved referendum passed in 2016. The adjustment will boost wages for up to 147,000 working Mainers, according to the Maine Center for Economic Policy (MECEP). According to Maine law, each year the minimum wage is adjusted by the percent increase in the 12-month Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers for the Northeast Region as of August in the previous year. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released data finding an 8.1 percent increase in prices, resulting in next year’s minimum wage raise. > > According to MECEP analysis of US Bureau of Labor Statistics data, nearly 71,000 Mainers currently earn less than the new minimum hourly wage of $13.80. These workers will see an immediate wage increase on January 1. MECEP also expects nearly 76,000 Mainers who earn just over the new minimum wage level will see their wages increase as employers adjust wage scales.

>Most places are doing 15 at a minimum.

Exactly... Oddly enough, I had a teacher's aide who left to work at Target because it paid more than what he was making as a teacher's aide at $15/hr. I know actual classroom teachers considering doing the same.

I currently work at target. They’re paying three dollars more an hour at the Walmart just down the road.

Education wages in this country are a global laughingstock.

Thanks for finding those stats! That definitely seems higher than I would have thought, which makes me wonder where exactly those workers are located within the state. I'd expect it's really only the more rural employers that can get away with paying that little for labor.

Everywhere I shop or eat people bitch about being short staffed. At $13.80 an hour, I would say fuck that. Pay your employees better. That is a shit wage. Politicians want people in poverty. It's fucking sick.

The Whole tipping wage thing is bizarre, does any other country do this (at least other countries where tipping is customary)? How can something that is so based in local culture (not laws), have a solid wage limit? Could I as a business owner, just say hey guess what we will allow our customers to tip now, so your salary is 6.90 (as ridiculous as that would be)? Or is it enshrined somewhere that this is solely for restaurant workers?

This law was passed what 5years ago? Started at 10$ then a dollar every year until 12 then it's cost of living increase every year after that. This will happen every january

So great but it’s not enough. $13.80 would’ve been great 20 years ago. You cannot survive on that low of an income without outside support.

PeOpLe DoNt WaNt To WoRk AnYmOrE!

Even setting morals aside it’s just not possible to live off of that wage. 13.80 an hour won’t even cover rent and food unless you’re working insane hours. No one but the most desperate will accept those jobs and even the most of them will find more productive uses of their time.

Cost of living increase to 13.80? Yea that’s going to be a no from me.

If your tips + wage dont equal minimum wage, you are entitled to minimum wage.

[deleted]

The FLSA defines it as someone who regularly makes $30 a month in tips. I don't know if Maine law adjusts that.

Of course switching to using the tip credit doesn't mean employees suddenly get less than minimum wage - the employer would still have to make sure they made that - but I do have to wonder if that's why tip jars are everywhere now.

If minimum wage kept up with inflation and rose in step with productivity it would be approximately $21.50 per hour. (Source)

The working class is getting fucked by the ownership class.

Call me when it's $25 and I'll consider it.

That's how they calculate it. This is actually a huge cost of living increase. It was like 20 or 30 cents last year I think. Now it's 1.10. tells you how much trouble we are in.

Single person living in a efficiency apartment paying 600 a month could swing it

That's the fact of it. In this country poverty is a policy decision, not a lack of resources. Policies made by the wealthy who want to stay or become more wealthy.

Food stamps..free healthcare. Things like this help when you are poor as dirt

It will be $15 in Portland on Jan 1, 2023

I think we should make a law that makes it illegal to fire someone if they don't make enough in tips and the employer has to pay into their wage to make up the difference.

So will this “raise” make you poorer by lifting you over the threshold to qualify for things like MaineCare?

*Edited to make this more of a question than a statement. Maybe MaineCare adjusts its thresholds accordingly to avoid this scenario? One would hope.

Who actually still pays minimum wage? Fast food places around me have signs up advertising $16., and they can’t find enough workers. If you pay minimum wage you deserve to be under staffed.

Yeah, cause affordable housing is everywhere

No ones talking about available housing. Just what you would be able to do with a certain amount of money.....

Cue all the “pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get a better job” crowd, and their magical solutions that aren’t reasonable & haven’t ever worked.

I honestly haven't seen an efficiency under $1000 in a long time. Like, I get that it used to be an option, but today I don't think it is.

Yup.

If true, that's a nasty side effect I hadn't heard mentioned prior.

It's more "hard circumstances mean you need to work however hard is necessary to survive (and might not survive) and that isn't something government has any business meddling in - it's just life" in my experience.

Nasty stuff.

Paid that. 20 years ago.

Edited my original comment to reflect my knowledge of the situation.

No one who works 40 hours a week should be dirt poor. 40 hours a week should be enough to provide basic living necessities.

You can still find em. 1 bedroom with shared kitchens. It's not glamorous by any means but if you are making min wage then you shouldn't be expecting a 3 bedroom 2 bath townhouse

Probably not in Portland. In Belfast they have some that have shared kitchens so it's just a bedroom you rent. But like I said. If you are single it'll do until you can get a better job and make more

Because it’s not available if you can’t afford it.

I agree. But that's not how it is. This is why we have programs in place to help. The first year I worked where I'm working now I got qualified for free care through Belfast because I only made 14k in 11 months. That was 8 years ago. And they paid for my back surgery. I was renting a room off someone for 100$ a week making 8$ an hour. And got 130$ a month in food stamps. The programs help a lot.

Aha...haaaaa...yeah, I doubt they'll raise MaineCare's thresholds. It's been a broken-down shit pile for years now.

At 13.80 an hour for 40 hr week you wouldn't be able to afford 600$ a month? Wow. When I was making 8$ an HR I was paying 400$ a month to rent a room. It should be easy to swing.

Of course, lots and lots of people have done just that, "gotten a better Jon where they're making more." Which is precisely why we have these staffing shortages in the service industry. Myself, I really don't care too much because I know how to cook, but it's very obvious that the world has changed drastically in the past three years.

Absolutely it has. It's getting scary.

Lol, I haven't seen apartments going for $600 a month in years. To be fair, I am around Portland, so maybe in more rural areas that's available. But I also visit Lewiston frequently, and with Portland rents going nuts, Lewiston's have also shot up as people spill over to there.

I also have a house now though. So mostly it's apartment hunting for friends when they need it these days. Still, I haven't seen $600 a month rents in forever.

Which isn’t near enough. I don’t know how people do it.

Since the raise is based on inflation or CoL (I forget which), I would assume MaineCare and other benefits like SNAP would have thresholds raised as well. But I don't know that's the plan for sure, or if they're calculated exactly the same way.

Efficiency apartments in my area are not "apartments" its a bedroom with a shared kitchen/living area.

To be fair. You aren't meant to raise a family on min wage. It's enough for a person by themselves to get by.

Same as it ever was : (

it was not like this for boomers. 40 hours = able to buy a house working at mcdonalds

that is a lie. boomers were able to raise a family and buy homes on minwage

FDR would beg to differ.

Actually to buy a 200,000 house at 13.80 min wage you have to work 14,492 hours.

To buy a house in 1980 for 47,500 at 3.10 min wage you have to work 15,322 hours.

I went back 40 years. Not sure if that's appropriate for the "boomer" term. Sorry if it's not

Uh, having worked in the mortgage industry, that is not how that works.

You just cant compare money earned/hours to the end price of a loan. LOL

Hi, Medicaid policy wonk here. MaineCare will be 133percent of the federal poverty line as an expanded state which depends on household size. So the FPL needs to be adjusted but not at the expense of minimum wage on our state.

That was then. This is now. Listen I'm not saying it isn't bullshit because it is. But simply snapping fingers and making everyone earn 30$ isn't feasible.

Just like you can't compare living 40 years ago to today......

actually you can, Stay dense though.

There were a few years at the beginning of last century where it wasn’t like that

Those wouldn't be the same years when we had an active, militant labor movement with widespread union membership in solidarity with active movements around socialism, anarchism, and an active communist party would they?

As a matter of fact, they would!

I raised wages for all of my staff, none of whom make the minimum wage, because of this increase. Just worked out what percentage over minimum they had been making, then applied that percentage to the new minimum wage.

Retired Baby Boomers weighing in on a world that hasn't needed them for 2 decades

I just checked Craigslist for the Bangor area. The cheapest efficiency is $675 a month and there is only 1, every thing else is a couple hundred more minimum, and if the person has kids there's no way to try and support them too without government aid. At which point the government is just subsidizing businesses who don't want to pay a living wage

I don't remember low-level fast food employees buying houses back in the 70s and 80s. Maybe living in a crappy trailer park, but not in a proper house.

I make 28$ an hour and still barely make it supporting the family. But I'm over the mark for help by like 7 grand. So I can't get any help at all. If you are making min wage with kids for starters you won't be getting an efficiency apartment. And 2 you would have everything subsidized including groceries and healthcare. So you wouldn't have much want for anything.

[removed]

Or an intentional feature...

So if it’s based on federal guidelines and those haven’t changed then someone in Maine who’s wages go up because of this new state policy are in danger of losing their benefits if the increase eclipses the federal poverty line, right?

Does that happen if you work at a restaurant, and say, it's a slow week and tips are scant? The owner would bump up your hourly pay from 6$ to 13$?

Seems like a lot of opportunity for abuse by shady employers.

Even nastier, if that's, the case.

There is a world where someone could loose their benefits. Medicaid eligibility is notoriously behind so if you’re an individual in that situation, I’d recommend letting them locate the discrepancy.

My point was, if you put off raising minimum wage because a small subset of people would loose services, you do a different disservice. The Medicaid expansion (moving from 100 to 133 FPL) outweighs the increase in minimum wage since then.

It’s also worth noting that Medicaid expansion hoped for competitive private plans on the marketplace but in practice that hasn’t happened. So this hypothetical family where they don’t want an increase in their minimum wage pay because they’d loose benefits, should be able to purchase a federally subsidized plan off the marketplace - which they still can, it’s just expensive and worse care than Medicaid.

Don’t quote me, but I think it would be by paycheck.

Reply to your edit about Maine’s thresholds. They could do that but it would have to be state-only money. The traditional non-expansion population is covered 69.5: 30.5, federal dollars to state dollars. The expansion population was covered at a higher rate to encourage states to expand so we’re getting more like 90/10 federal to state. I was a wonk in Colorado before moving here so I’m less versed on MaineCare but expanding eligibility to cover the gap would either require a state plan adjustment, an advanced planning document, or another document to continue to ensure federal financial participation.

TLDR: to cover these people the state would need a disproportionate amount of money due to which FMAP these folks would fall into. Also, we would have to ask the feds usually.

Isn't that a flophouse or boarding house? Efficiency apartments are a specific real estate term, was my understanding.

[removed]

Walmart, McDonald's and many other fast food places are hiring they pay way more than minimum wage. A door greeter at Walmart can get anywhere between $14-$16 an hour and the prices go up from there. people who shop for the online shoppers get paid $17 to $18 an hour or so I'm told. McDonald's starts at $18 an hour. Most fast food places are starting at $18 an hour and that's mostly because nobody wants to work. They're having to throw money at people to get them to work. So I don't know who's actually paying minimum wage in the state but every place I've looked into getting a job at they paid way more than that min wage

There’s no point in arguing with them since these arguments are always made in bad faith. They know their solutions don’t work, they just want to keep exploiting people.

State's rights....you wanted em, you got em.

Enjoy paying 20% more for everything. The rich don't care about the cost of living.

Who wanted what again?

Same as it ever was. Do you mean 20% more than now, or 20% more than pre-pandemic?

Just took my son to a trip to Maine.

So we’re finally back to 15% tips being the norm, rather than 20%? Win win.

With opinions like this, you shouldn't be expecting anyone to take you seriously.

This is a problem with all of the programs that are based on federal income guidelines. Due to inflation and slightly higher wages many people who truly need access to things like WIC, Mainecare/Medicare, and LIHEAP, etc can’t get those services because they make too much money and the federal guidelines haven’t caught up at all.

This is a problem with all of the programs that are based on federal income guidelines. Due to inflation and slightly higher wages many people who truly need access to things like WIC, Mainecare/Medicare, and LIHEAP, etc can’t get those services because they make too much money and the federal guidelines haven’t caught up at all.

Problem is the apartment is in Belfast, the JOBS are in Freeport, Portland, Augusta, Rockland, you know, places you need a car to get to FROM Belfast--and that's a whole OTHER issue.

Government jobs lag in raises (COLA or otherwise) because of the elaborate budget approval process.

So you should expect to start at the bottom pay level and be able to afford living in luxury? I fucked up my life by doing drugs for 17 years. When I got sober I started actually working for a living and started at 8$ an hour. Couldn't afford shit but a bedroom in someone's house. I worked hard and moved up. Now I make 29$ an hour at the same business. This took 8 years. Anyone that starts out shouldn't expect more than what they can afford. If you want more then earn it. It will NOT be GIVEN to you. Had I done this 20 years ago when I was 20 then I would be that much better off now. We all have to start at the bottom. Especially if you don't make the right choices early on in life. If that's a bad opinion then so be it. But it is the way the world works. Cry about it all you want. It's not changing anytime soon

Belfast McDonald's pays 18$ an hour. Idk wtf you are talking about.

> A door greeter at Walmart can get anywhere between $30 an hour

lmao

where, in California?

That was a typo. My apologies. It's 14 -16

That's what I get for using voice to text. Android never gets it right.

The last job I had before covid hit was 13 an hour working in a kitchen, with no benefits. It was difficult to find enthusiasm after a while when I realized just how little they cared for my mental and emotional health yet expected me to show up to my shift with a "positive, can do" attitude. Let me tell you how happy I was to make 13 an hour as I remade a customer's order three times over because they were purposely being difficult or the time I had to argue with my chef just to get coverage for a sick day, or the day they (management) threw me and two other of my coworkers on a busy shift with absolutely no training on how to cook or plate the menu.

People don't want to work for peanuts, plain and simple. And they sure as shoot don't want to handle the aggressive behavior that seems to have taken prevalence as we move forward (post pandemic feels weird to say).

I know there's good folks paying their staff well and taking care of them because they're decent, compassionate humans. On the whole, we're way behind where we need to be. And the sad thing is, we could all be living in a better more utopian setting if our entire system wasn't based on capitalistic greed and exploitative working conditions for certain sectors.

It's still meaningless. How does Maine have some of the most expensive housing and costs of living, but also some of the lowest wages? Someone must be making money here. It's just not the ones laboring to do the work.