Councilors passed a resolution Monday that will place a question on the March ballot asking residents, “Shall the voters of Burlington advise their representatives to the Vermont Legislature to support an increase in the Vermont minimum wage to $15 an hour?”
Roughly two dozen people joined councilors and City Council candidates on the steps of City Hall for a rally supporting the resolution before Monday’s meeting.
“The Vermont minimum wage does not come close to meeting the basic-needs budget of workers in Vermont and in Burlington, so it’s not a fair wage,” said City Council President Jane Knodell, P-Central District, the resolution’s author.
Increasing the minimum wage is especially important for equity, Knodell said, because it would help to close the gender and racial pay gaps that exist for Vermonters.
As the result of a 2014 law, the current minimum wage is $10 an hour and will increase to $10.50 in 2018. After that the wage will rise with the consumer price index, which measures inflation.
H.93, offered by Rep. Curt McCormack, D-Burlington, would raise the wage incrementally to $11.50 in 2019, $12.50 in 2020, $13.50 in 2021 and $15 in 2022.
Another bill, H.64, sponsored by Rep. Paul Poirier, I-Barre, calls for a steeper rise to $15 by Jan. 1, 2020.
Councilor Selene Colburn, P-East District, who was elected to the House of Representatives in November, said she’s encouraged by those legislative efforts but has encountered “a lot of fear and timidity” from lawmakers.
Colburn said a strong vote of encouragement from Vermont’s largest city would go a long way toward galvanizing support in Montpelier for further increasing the minimum wage.
Councilor Kurt Wright, R-Ward 4, who also serves in the House, was the lone vote against the resolution.
“I don’t think it’s the right approach,” he said. Vermont’s existing law, tying the wage to inflation, means the state will eventually have a $15 minimum wage, he said.
“It’s a question of when we get to $15 an hour,” Wright said. He added that although he supports measured increases to the minimum wage, too large an increase could decrease the demand for low-wage workers.
The resolution passed by a vote of 10 to 1, with Councilor Dave Hartnett, I-North District, recusing himself. Hartnett is a small business owner who said he would be directly affected by increases to the minimum wage.
Mayor Miro Weinberger said with the uncertainty created by the incoming Trump administration, “it’s more critical than ever that state and local government do what they can to make sure work pays and that we’re doing what we can to break down inequality.”
Weinberger, a Democrat, said he looks forward to signing the resolution when it reaches his desk.
Prospects for new minimum wage legislation in the Statehouse appear mixed. House Speaker Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero, has said she supports the concept of raising the wage further and doing it over a period of time. But she said more work needs to be done in committees to address how a raise would affect small businesses and farms.
Rebecca Kelley, a spokeswoman for Republican Gov. Phil Scott, said recently that Scott does not support further increasing the minimum wage. The governor would like to see wages rise but through market forces, not legislation, she said.
Vermont is in the midst of a four-year increase to its minimum wage and should wait to assess its impact before increasing it further, she said.
