Living Wage in MD!
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Gwen Litvak is a Legislative Assistant at the Religious Action Center. She is a graduate of UCLA. |
In 1994, Baltimore passed the first living wage in the U.S. and on Wednesday, Maryland demonstrated its continued commitment to the fight against low wages when Governor Martin O’ Malley signed the country’s first state wide living wage ordinance into law.
The living wage rate varies by area; the Washington Post reports that those who work in the Washington-Baltimore corridor will be paid $11.30 an hour and those who work in rural areas will be paid $8.50 an hour. This is still higher than the current state minimum wage of $6.15 an hour and federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. Baltimore’s living wage ordinance kicked off a nation wide movement that has led to hundreds of city wide living wages. Hopefully Maryland’s state wide living wage ordinance will prove to be a catalyst for a nation wide living wage movement.