Bangor council approves minimum wage increase for 2017
The city of Bangor has joined Portland as the second city in Maine to approve a minimum wage increase.
The Bangor Daily News reported that Bangor city councilors approved a citywide minimum wage hike that will increase the wage to $8.25 per hour at the start of 2017. The wage will increase to $9 per hour in 2018, $9.75 in 2019 and then increase or decrease in following years based on the consumer price index.
However, if a statewide ballot initiative to increase Maine’s minimum wage from $7.50 per hour to $12 by 2020 is approved in November 2016, when it’s expected to appear on the ballot, Bangor would follow the statewide increase benchmarks, the BDN reported.
The statewide minimum wage initiative would raise the wage to $9 in 2017, $10 in 2018, $11 in 2019 and $12 in 2020. After 2020, the wage would be tied to the consumer price index.
Another minimum wage proposal in Bangor from Councilor Joe Baldacci, who has filed to run for Congress next year, failed to gain traction when first reviewed by councilors in July. That proposal would have increased the city’s minimum wage at the start of next year and eventually to $9.75 by 2018.
In Portland, the minimum wage will increase to $10.10 per hour next month. Voters in the state’s largest city rejected a proposal in November that would have incrementally raised the city's minimum wage to $15 per hour for businesses employing 500 or more people by 2017 and all businesses by 2019.
Read more
Bangor considering minimum wage hike proposals
Minimum wage ballot initiative in the works
Initiative to increase Maine's minimum wage headed to legislature
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