Maryland’s minimum hourly wage will be $15 beginning Jan. 1 under a bill from Gov. Wes Moore that passed in the General Assembly on Tuesday.
The pay hike that lawmakers approved is less ambitious than what Moore sought, but the governor has maintained an upbeat tone as the bill worked its way through the legislature. He’s scheduled to begin signing bills into law on Tuesday of next week.
“The North Star of our administration is creating pathways to work, wages, and wealth and this legislation will lift up hardworking Marylanders statewide,” Moore wrote in a tweet on Tuesday.
Moore, a Democrat, initially proposed raising the $13.25 minimum wage to $15 per hour for all businesses beginning Oct. 1 — more than a year before the state’s current law would require it.
The minimum wage would have also been tied to the Consumer Price Index, which measures how the prices that consumers pay change over time, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Maryland is one of 30 states and Washington, D.C., that has a minimum wage higher than the federal rate of $7.25 per hour, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank based in the district.
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