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Massachusetts Voters Likely To Weigh In On Minimum Wage Hike and Paid Leave in 2018


Late last month, Raise Up Massachusetts announced that it collected enough signatures to get two measures on the ballot in 2018, one that would raise the hourly minimum wage rate in the state and another that would require employers to offer paid family and medical leave.  (Raise Up Massachusetts is a coalition of labor, religious, and community groups).  The minimum wage proposal seeks to raise the hourly minimum wage rate in the state from its current rate of $11/hour up to $15/hour by 2022.  The paid family and medical leave proposal would create a program that would require employers to offer most employees 16 weeks of paid leave to care for a new child or to care for a sick family member.  This proposal would also provide 26 weeks of leave for workers recovering from an illness.

For those unfamiliar with the requirements to get a ballot measure approved, Massachusetts requires the signatures of 64,750 registered Massachusetts voters to get the measure on a ballot.  Raise Up Massachusetts announced that it had collected 138,924 signatures for the minimum wage proposal and 135,470 signatures for the paid family and medical leave proposal.  (It is a good idea to get more signatures than necessary in case some signatures are disputed, illegible, not signed by registered voters, etc.  Having "extra" signatures in support of a ballot measure provides some wiggle room in case the Secretary of State does not approve some signatures).  

At this stage, Raise Up Massachusetts is expected to submit the signatures to the Massachusetts Secretary of State tomorrow.  Once that is done, the Secretary of State will then inspect the signatures and determine if the required 64,750 signatures have been submitted.  Assuming that occurs, I would expect to see both measures on the ballot in 2018.  Stay tuned.


For additional information:  https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2017/11/30/wage-paid-leave-proposals-have-signatures-to-get.html

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