With the New Year, the state minimum wage increased from $12.75 an hour to $13.50 while the minimum wage for tipped employees increased from from $4.95 to $5.55 — a small win for low-wage service workers who have been hard hit by the pandemic.
“It’s a step in the right direction,” said Chelsea Titchenell, a Salem resident who works as an oyster shucker and waitress at Turner’s Seafood. “But Massachusetts is one of the most expensive states in the nation, so it still won’t be enough.”
This $13.50 minimum wage will be among the highest in the nation, although, with the lack of affordability on the North Shore, minimum wage workers still struggle to make ends meet.
A person making minimum wage working full time 50 weeks a year would make $27,000 a year before taxes–right around the poverty line for a family of four.
According to a report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition titled “Out of Reach 2020,” a Massachusetts minimum wage worker would have had to work 111 hours per week last year — about 16 hours a day, seven days a week — to afford rent on an average two-bedroom rental home at 30 percent of his/her income.
The minimum wage required for an employee working 40 hours a week to afford this rent would be $35.52 per hour.
Many of these problems are even more pronounced on the North Shore, where housing tends to be even less affordable.
In Lynnfield, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott, where rents tend to be higher than the state average, this required minimum wage would be even greater than $35.52.
Joshua Rodriguez, who works two jobs, including one retail job at the North Shore Mall in Peabody that pays minimum wage, put it more bluntly.
“If I had to pay rent I’d be (in tough shape) right now,” said Rodriguez, who is living with family currently. “I can only imagine the people who have to live off this wage, especially right now during this pandemic. It seems like the only jobs available are customer service jobs that pay the minimum.”
Rodriguez also expressed concern that low wages lead to high employee turnover.
“Don’t companies lose more that way?” asked Rodriguez. “Aren’t they better off taking care of the good ones?”
Titchenell thought that the concept of unpaid internships should be addressed along with an increased minimum wage.
“No one should be expected to work for free so that they can have experience,” said Titchenell. “And having unpaid internships allows companies to start higher level jobs at a lower wage. It isn’t reasonable to expect someone to work 40 hours a week and not get a single dime, and experience or resume-building doesn’t pay the bills.”
Service workers like Titchenell and Rodriguez have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, seeing a decline in tips, increase in sexual harassment from customers and hostility toward safety protocols, according to a study by One Fair Wage and The UC Berkeley Food Labor Research Center.
Along with this, many have lost their jobs due to restaurant closures or lost hours due to a lack of customers.
The minimum wage increases were included in part of the 2018 “Grand Bargain” legislation, which phased out Sunday time and a half pay in return for the minimum wage increases and for improved access to paid medical leave and paid family leave.
Under this legislation, minimum wage is set to increase annually until it reaches $15 in 2023.
