The Delware Senate passed a less ambitious plan to increase Delaware’s minimum wage to $8.25 per hour by 2015. The bill dropped a controversial cost of living formula.
“This isn’t what we sought at the outset,” said Sen. Robert I. Marshall, D-Wilmington. “But we in the Senate listen and I think this compromise takes into account concerns I heard from my colleagues in the Senate, as well as the business community and I’m hopeful that it will win support in the House and from the governor.”
Opposed to the bill was State Sen. Gerald Hocker, who operates small businesses in Sussex County.
“From my more than 40 years experience of running a business, when you raise the minimum wage you end up hurting the ones you think you’re helping,” Hocker said.
“Someone’s got to pay for those increased labor costs. That means higher prices for customers, and reduced hours or even layoffs for my employees. Typically those that end up suffering the most are the ones in the lower income brackets.”
“Everything is connected,” Hocker said. “When the minimum wage goes up, so do all the expenses that go with it. A lot of business owners can’t afford it. It’s a tough time right now.”
The bill cleared the Senate on a 12-9 vote. The measure faced stiff opposition from the business community, which claimed the measure would drive up all wages. Active in the effort to stop the bill were chambers of commerce and the Delaware Restaurant Association.
Marshall originally proposed an $8.75 hourly rate, with a cost of living increase built in as well as language keeping Delaware’s minimum wage rate $1 above the federal rate. The compromise holds Delaware’s rate at its traditional position of $1 above the federal rate, but eliminates the cost of living and automatic increase above the federal rate.
Delaware’s minimum wage automatically increased to the federal level in 2009 when the last of a part of a 2006 law increasing the rate to its current level of $7.25 per hour took effect. Marshall worked on an effort to increase the rate last year, but his legislation stalled in the House.
“ I put this off because I didn’t want to impose additional hardship on businesses that were struggling to get by at the height of the recession,” Marshall said. “But now that the economy is slowly getting back on its feet, I think workers at the lower end of the income scale who have suffered unduly should get a hand up.
“I think people, especially here in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, where the cost of living is traditionally higher than other parts of the country, are seeing the harm caused by stagnation in the minimum wage,” Marshall said. “While this isn’t an organized strategy, we’re responding to human need and trying to make things better for the people we represent.”
