[B]URLINGTON — City Council President Jane Knodell is seeking voter support to urge the Legislature to pass a statewide $15 an hour minimum wage.
Knodell says she will introduce a resolution at the next City Council meeting to place an advisory question on the March ballot seeking resident input.
“The gap between the current minimum wage in Vermont and nationally and the livable wage, as defined by various sources, is stark,” said Knodell, P-Central District. “Anyone working full time should be able to meet their basic needs. Someone working full time at the current minimum wage isn’t able to do that.”
The resolution, which is expected to be on the agenda at the council’s Jan. 23 meeting, will create an advisory question for the March Town Meeting day ballot that asks Queen City voters whether Burlington should urge lawmakers in Montpelier to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour statewide.
Knodell said she chose to start with an advisory question to gauge city voters’ support. She said she did not think passing a $15 hourly minimum wage for just Burlington would be sensible.
She said Burlington does not have a large enough economy itself to make setting a minimum wage different than the rest of the state a viable option.
“We’re not quite there in Burlington, but I think we could get there,” Knodell said.
It’s unclear how much appetite there will be in the Legislature to take up new minimum wage legislation in the current biennium. A 2014 law has already increased the minimum wage to $10 per hour, and the minimum wage for tipped employees to $5 per hour.
In 2018, the minimum hourly wage will increase again to $10.50, and in 2019 and beyond the wage will be tied to the consumer price index or increase by 5 percent, whichever is lower.
Republican Gov. Phil Scott opposed the 2014 minimum wage law, and has said he doesn’t believe the state should go further in increasing its minimum wage.
Knodell said it would fall to Progressives and progressive Democrats to make the case in the Statehouse that raising the minimum wage will improve the state’s economy.
A recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found that a $15 minimum wage would increase paychecks for more than 85,000 Vermont workers. More than half of those workers are over 30, and close to a quarter have a bachelor’s degree, according to a report by the left-leaning Public Assets Institute, a Montpelier-based think tank.
Increasing the minimum wage would also the state’s economy, including local businesses, because more people would be able to afford their goods and services, according to the Public Assets report.
Mayor Miro Weinberger, who recently urged his Democratic party to back Knodell in the March election, said in a statement that he wanted to see a final draft, but expected that he would be supporting the resolution.
