Ben Jealous: A Progressive Democrat Courts Moderate Voters – WYPR
If elected, Jealous says he’d raise Maryland’s minimum wage from the $10.10 an hour that’s to take effect in July to $15 an hour, a proposal that’s been tossed around the statehouse for several years without much success.
Standing in front of a small boutique hair salon in Northeast Baltimore city, Jealous says raising the minimum wage is good for small businesses and would not cause them to shrink their payrolls, contrary to what some may think. And small businesses support him, he says.
“What the owners know – is that people spend their money within two miles of where they live,” he argued. “Trickle-down economics has never worked, bottom up always has.”
Ben Orr, from the Maryland Center for Economic Policy, says that jibes with a report they did last year called “What a $15 Minimum Wage Would Mean for Maryland.”
The organization analyzed data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and from the other cities that have already raised the minimum wage to well above the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour.
Orr says they found that people who work in minimum wage jobs do spend their money close by.
“It makes a difference in the local economy and you see growth and you see greater prosperity for all,” he said.
