By Lindsay Tice
Lewiston-Auburn Sun Journal, October 18, 2016
Question 4: Do you want to raise the minimum hourly wage of $7.50 to $9 in 2017, with annual $1 increases up to $12 in 2020, and annual cost-of-living increases thereafter; and do you want to raise the direct wage for service workers who receive tips from half the minimum wage to $5 in 2017, with annual $1 increases until it reaches the adjusted minimum wage?
On Nov. 8, voters will decide whether Maine employers must give the state's lowest-wage workers a raise.
Proponents of Question 4 say the state's current minimum wage of $7.50 an hour hasn't been increased in years and is far too low for any Mainer to live on. They want to raise it to $12 an hour by 2020 and make future increases automatic, based on the cost of living. Proponents also want to increase the wages paid to tipped workers — such as waiters and waitresses — by regularly adding to the $3.75 an hour those workers make until they, too, reach minimum wage in the next several years. ...
The Maine Small Business Coalition is one vocal supporter of Question 4. So is Jim Wellehan, president of Auburn-based Lamey-Wellehan.
"Our taxpayers subsidize the people who are underpaid by corporations, with food stamps, with health care, with subsidized housing," said Wellehan, whose shoe stores' employees make, on average, about $15 an hour. "Keeping people out of the worst of situations costs taxpayers that way, so why not just have businesses do it?" ...