The Rhode Island House Committee
on Labor heard three bills seeking to raise the minimum wage:
- H7770,
from Representative David Bennett (Democrat, District 20,
Warwick, Cranston), would increase the minimum hourly wage commencing
January 1, 2029, by an amount equal to the total percentage increase in
the Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers (CPI-U)
for the Northeast Region for the calendar year 2027;
- H7769,
from Representative Jenni Furtado (Democrat, District 64,
East Providence, Pawtucket) would set the minimum wage for 2027 at $20 per
hour; and,
- H7771,
from Representative Enrique Sanchez (Democrat, District
9, Providence), would set the minimum wage for 2027 at $24 per hour.
Here’s the video, edited to exclude bills and discussions
not related to the three minimum wage bills:
Proponents, including labor representatives, public health professionals, and economic justice advocates, argued that the current minimum wage was not a living wage, forcing full-time workers into poverty and creating health inequities. They contended that raising the wage would provide economic stability, stimulate local economies, and offer dignity to workers.
Opponents, primarily small-business coalitions and a
hospitality association represented by well-connected, high-priced lobbyists,
argued that significant wage increases would hinder small businesses already
facing high costs. They warned, without evidence, that raising the minimum wage
would lead to higher prices, inflation, and job losses, making Rhode Island
less economically competitive.
But the core of the opponents’ argument is that most
businesses in Rhode Island cannot survive if they are required to pay their
workers a wage sufficient to lift them out of poverty. In other words, an
“economically competitive” Rhode Island depends on the exploitation of
low-income workers.
Among the lobbyists present to make these arguments were:
- Jason
Martesian, representing the Rhode
Island Business Coalition;
- William
Walsh, representing the Northern Rhode Island Chamber of
Commerce, the Rhode
Island Builders Association, the Rhode Island Hospitality Association (RIHA),
the Rhode Island Marine Trade
Association (RIMTA), and the Construction Industries of Rhode Island;
- Robert
Goldberg, representing the Greater
Providence Chamber of Commerce; and,
- Ryan
Moot, manager of Government Affairs at RIHA, who doesn’t appear to be
registered as a lobbyist.
Some business owners, such as David Levesque of Brewed
Awakenings, also spoke in opposition:
“I don’t know how many of you guys actually sign the front
of a check, but I do. And many of the businesses that I work with also believe
in what I’m about to say: You guys are trying to push a minimum wage so we can
have a livable wage. Well, what is a livable wage? What’s it for you? What’s it
for you? It’s different for everybody.
“I can tell you, when my daughter started working for me a
year and a half ago, at 15 years old, she wasn’t worth $15 an hour. She had no
experience. She hadn’t worked before, but you required me to pay her $15 an
hour. So the worker that’s been with me longer, eight, nine, 10, or 20 years…
We can’t afford to pay more when we’re forced to pay an entry-level worker an
unacceptably high wage. There needs to be an entry-level wage.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Dave Levesque is the founder of the League of Rhode Island Business (LORIB), a statewide political action committee with 40 subsidiary PACs in every Rhode Island city and town, including Charlestown. Levesque is pro-MAGA and Trump, as well as bitterly opposed to gun control and taxes on the wealthy. His PAC seeks to unseat virtually every Democratic woman legislator in South County, as detailed HERE.
“Given what you’re proposing, why stop at $20 or $24? Based
on the way the state’s running: energy costs, electrical, heating, taxes, it
might as well be $50 or $60 an hour because $20 and $24 ain’t enough for
anybody to have a livable wage. You’ve got to think about the businesses.
[Earlier, we heard that] restaurants have a three, four, five, six, or eight
percent bottom line. That’s all you got. We struggle to survive. You guys are
driving up costs…
“It’s important that you guys think. You shouldn’t be
forcing us to raise the minimum wage. I don’t believe anything you guys are
saying, but I will tell you, if you come work at Brewed Awakenings, you don’t
make $16 an hour. You don’t make $17, $18, $19 or $20. The lowest paid work in
our company is $21 an hour, and it’s not because you guys dictate it. It’s
because of the way we run the company. It’s because of the people who work for
us. That’s at the bare minimum. People who are there longer, we try to give
them more money. But when you force me to pay my daughter, who’s an entry-level
worker, and now you want [me to pay her] $20 an hour? Well, guess who’s not
going to have that longtime job? The worker who’s been there 10, 15, or 20
years, because you won’t be able to afford them. It’s not the way to run a
business.
“Businesses in Rhode Island are good. They take care of
their employees. Please understand that, and let them do their job without
getting involved in any wage compensation. If somebody’s abusing their
employees, absolutely. But to stand there and think you can dictate a livable
wage, you have no idea how somebody lives. You don’t know what they need. You
can never meet that objective. So I disagree with all these bills, and I think
you guys need to stay out of business and let us do our job.”
Levesque’s testimony was odd because he immediately followed
the testimony of Alan Krinsky, the Director of Research and Fiscal
Policy at the Economic
Progress Institute. Krinsky had just spent time explaining exactly what
a livable wage is, based on the comprehensive research that the organization
puts into its biannual Rhode Island
Standard of Need report:
“It can’t be, or at least it shouldn’t be, that we can have
a successful, vibrant economy only if we pay workers wages that are
insufficient to meet their most basic needs. Every two years, our organization
produces this report, the Rhode Island Standard of Need. We’ll have a new
edition coming out later this year that looks at what a basic-needs budget is
for individuals and families of different sizes.
“In the 2024 edition, we determined that it costs a single
adult worker, working full time without any children, $23.47 an hour to meet
basic needs - not to take vacations before - but basic needs. For two adults
working full-time with two children, each needed about $25.75 an hour, and I
won’t even go into a single parent with two children.
“Representative Sanchez’s proposal would at least get folks
to the equivalent of a basic-needs budget in 2024 - not a true living wage in
2027 - but it’ll be much closer than what we’re at now. Short of this,
Representative Furtado’s $20-per-hour proposal would be a welcome step in that
direction.
“As to Representative Bennett’s bill, we should certainly
add an annual inflation adjustment. Connecticut already has this. When
Connecticut moved to $16 per hour, they had that in place. It then went up to
1$6.35 last year and to $16.94 this year.
“Whatever proposal one would accept for raising the minimum
wage, we should add an inflation adjustment to it. Preferably, we’d raise the
minimum wage first, then add an inflation adjustment to the base amount.
“Increasing the minimum wage will increase equity. It will
increase the amount of money circulating in the economy, but most of all, we
need to get Rhode Island to a place where hardworking Rhode Islanders can earn
at least a basic-needs wage and, eventually, a living wage for working
full-time.”
At the conclusion of David Levesque’s testimony,
Representative Brandon Potter (Democrat, District 16,
Cranston) had some questions:
Brandon Potter: Sir, are you aware that when the
minimum wage was enacted, it was meant to be a livable wage?
David Levesque: No, I’m not aware it was meant
to be a livable wage.
Brandon Potter: I would encourage you to go back
and review that basic part of American history, because that might better
inform you. Secondly, let me ask you this: You said that you’re struggling to
survive… and it’s your testimony that some of the struggle you’re having is
because of the minimum wage type laws that we enact here in the General
Assembly, right? It puts a constraint on your business. Is that a fact?
David Levesque: It absolutely does when you tell
me I have to pay a worker a certain wage, and I used my own daughter as the
example. Let me ask you, my daughter, 15. Do you think she’s worth $16 or $17
an hour for a first-time job?
Brandon Potter: But didn’t you testify a moment
ago that you pay well above the minimum wage? So how can your testimony be both
that you pay well above the minimum wage, but that you’re also so pressured by
minimum wage laws that even your own daughter isn’t worth that amount of money?
David Levesque: I’ll go back to the example:
Somebody who doesn’t have the skills - that’s an entry level, you can’t be
dictating to businesses in Rhode Island that they should be paying a livable
wage for that person. We send people to school to learn so they can enter the
workforce and earn a job based on those skills. Not everybody should be paid
the same amount of money. It’s based on skill. If you’re working for me and
you’ve been there for a long time, you might be worth $25 or $30, but when you
force me to pay my daughter $16 to $17, I can’t give [the more experienced
worker] the $25 to $30. You [the General Assembly] should not be in the
business of telling businesses what they should pay. You have no idea how to
run a business. You don’t employ people.
Brandon Potter: I don’t have any further
questions for the witness, Chairman. I would just respectfully say that,
actually, that is what we do. As a governing body and a state legislature, we
pass laws that, in part, regulate business. That’s a core function of what we
do.
Chair Arthur Corvese: It is within the purview
of the General Assembly to enact laws. How we decide to enact those laws is a
dynamic between the public and their elected officials.
David Levesque: Understood.
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