BOSTON — Increasing the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour would give more than a million people across Massachusetts — a third of all workers — a pay increase, state Sen. Cindy Friedman told a legislative committee Tuesday.
Friedman, an Arlington Democrat whose district includes Billerica, Burlington, Woburn and parts of Lexington, testified before the Legislature’s Committee on Labor and Workforce Development on behalf of a minimum wage bill originally sponsored by her predecessor, the late Sen. Kenneth Donnelly, who died in April from brain cancer.
Donnelly’s bill, if passed, would increase the hourly minimum wage by $1 per hour every year, eventually reaching $15 by 2021. The bill would also increase the minimum wage for workers who receive tips outside of their hourly pay.