$15 Hourly Minimum Wage By 2025 OKed By MD Legislature

ANNAPOLIS, MD — Maryland lawmakers in the House and Senate on Wednesday approved compromise legislation that will increase the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 if Gov. Larry Hogan signs the bill, reports say. The measure was adopted in both bodies with enough votes to override a veto, WJLA reports.

The minimum wage would increase to $11 in January 2020. It would then increase 75 cents a year to $14 in 2024, and then reach $15 in the following year, WJLA said.

Gov. Hogan has opposed the amount of increase as harmful to the Maryland economy when nearby states have lower minimum wages, such as the $7.25 an hour minimum in Virginia. The Republican governor proposed raising the minimum wage from $10.10 per hour to $12.10 per hour over two years, the Baltimore Sun report. If surrounding states also increase their wage, then Maryland's minimum wage would also increase under Hogan's plan.

"Thousands of Maryland workers work full-time but don’t earn enough to make ends meet. We need a clean bill that does not include loopholes that would exclude certain groups of struggling workers such as seasonal or commission-based workers," the Fight for $15 Maryland Coalition said on its website. The group had pushed lawmakers to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2023.

"Raising the wage would lift thousands of families out of poverty, create new customers and profits for local businesses, and strengthen our neighborhoods," the coalition said.