Weekly Radio Address: Patrick says Raising minimum wage is the right thing to do and it’s the right time to do it

Weekly Radio Address: Senator John Patrick

Imagine for an hour’s work you still are not earning enough to buy the laundry detergent you need to wash your clothes.

Imagine for an hour’s work you still can’t afford a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, and the gallon of gas you need to get to the grocery store—and back.

For 14,000 of our brothers and sisters, this is not an imaginary game. This is the struggle they face every day.

Good morning. This is State Senator John Patrick of Rumford. 

Earlier this week, my colleagues in the House passed a bill to increase the minimum wage in Maine by 50 cents per hour—about the cost of a postage stamp.

This will be the first time minimum wage has been increased in four years—despite rising costs and depressed earnings. If the cost of milk, bread, and gas go up, why shouldn’t your pay check?

Tens of thousands of Mainers are doing the right thing. They get up, show up, and work 40 plus hours a week—and they still can’t make ends meet on the $15,000 a year they earn.

We were all taught, if you work hard, you will get rewarded. I think for many people, all they’re asking for is fairness. If you put in a hard day’s work you should get a fair day’s pay. The price of a movie ticket shouldn’t be more than you make for an hour’s worth of work.

This week while lawmakers were standing up for working people…the working poor, the governor was on vacation in Jamaica. For most of the people we were fighting for, going to Jamaica isn’t even a dream…never mind a vacation.

Nearly 1 in 5 workers have a job that doesn’t pay enough to lift a family of four out of poverty, much less meet their basic needs.

That is unacceptable to me.

Some say that minimum wage workers have a choice. They could aspire to work a better job. Well the truth is, the only choice they, the workers, have is to get up every day and try to earn a paycheck for their family. They are trying to do the right thing—and we should support people who want to work—we should support them by paying a wage that is fair. That is morally the right thing to do—and it makes economic sense.

Even our New England neighbors know that providing a good minimum wage is the right thing to do. Five years ago, Vermont tied its minimum wage to inflation. The minimum wage in Vermont is now $8.60 per hour, the highest in the region, and Vermont’s unemployment rate is less than 5%, the lowest in New England.

If it works for them, it can certainly work for us.

It’s time to do the same thing here in Maine.

Raising the minimum wage is a step in the right direction. Make no mistake, raising the minimum wage is still not a “live-able” wage but it will help students who are working full time to put themselves through college and it will help working mothers—some of the sixty-one percent of women who are earning $7.50 an hour to make a better life for their children. By the way, they’d have to work more than three hours just to buy a pack of diapers.

So if you believe in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay; if you believe working people shouldn’t live in poverty; and if you believe it’s time to put more money in the pockets of hard-working Mainers, please call your lawmakers and urge them to support the minimum wage bill.

It is the right thing to do, and it is the right time to do it.

Thank you for listening. This is State Senator John Patrick of Rumford. Have a wonderful weekend, and a safe holiday.

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