[D]emocratic candidate for governor Christine Hallquist and the party’s lawmakers are vowing to revive proposals to raise the minimum wage and create a statewide paid family leave program for employees, if they win their elections in November.
The proposals, which passed both chambers of the Legislature this year, were struck down by Gov. Phil Scott, who vetoed a $15 minimum wage increase because he believed it would burden small businesses, and the paid family leave program because it relied on a new payroll tax.
“This is not a political issue, this is the issue of are we going to be a civilized society,” Hallquist told reporters on Tuesday. “Do people who work 40 hours a week deserve to live in abject poverty?”
Hallquist was joined at a press conference by incumbent Democratic lawmakers including House Speaker Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero, and Sen. Michael Sirotkin, D-Chittenden, who co-sponsored the minimum wage legislation.
This election cycle, Hallquist and other Democrats have repeatedly pointed to Scott’s decision to kill the economic bills as evidence that the incumbent governor is out of touch with working Vermont families.
“Phil has no plan to take care of everyday Vermonters — we do,” Hallquist said Tuesday.
Johnson spoke at length about the paid family leave proposal, which would have provided employees with 12-week combined paid parental leave and six-week paid family leave.
“I’m committed to passing this legislation again, but can’t help think about the year that families have lost because of Gov. Scott’s veto,” Johnson said.
“We’ve got another year of mothers going back to work just days after childbirth,” she said. “We have another year of Vermonters scheduling chemo during lunch breaks because they don’t have other options.”
Scott, who has categorically resisted new tax proposals, has said he would support a paid family leave program, if it didn’t rely on a universal payroll tax. Instead of creating a statewide program, he has suggested establishing a system with other states like New Hampshire, which has mulled its own paid family leave proposal.
“Maybe we could join forces with them and Maine or some other group to expand the pool, but I believe it should be voluntary in nature and not create another tax on Vermonters,” he said during a debate with Hallquist last month.
His opposition to raising the minimum wage from $10.50 an hour to $15 an hour by 2024 stemmed from worries that a wage increase would result in job losses and widen the economic gap between Chittenden County and the rest of the state.
“I believe the bill is more likely to harm those it intends to help,” he said in his May veto letter.
On Tuesday, Sirotkin pointed to an analysis conducted by the Joint Fiscal Office showing that with a $15 minimum wage in 2024, 950 jobs would be lost, but 65,000 workers would see higher pay. He noted that New York will begin phasing in a $15 minimum wage next year, and Massachusetts will be at a $15 minimum wage by 2023. Maine will soon see its minimum wage hiked to $12 an hour.
“We are falling behind the curve of the rest of the region around us and it’s time to move forward,” Sirotkin said.
