10-24-2021 Women to Watch - Flipbook - Page 37
TIPPING
THE
SCALES
Women employees benefit from a rising
minimum wage, research shows
By Lorraine Mirabella
A
s some employers in Maryland boost minimum hourly pay and momentum builds to
increase the federal minimum wage, women have a lot to gain.
Female workers make up a large share of lowwage workers, so they stand to benefit from the
proposed federal increase as well as from planned
phased-in increases in Maryland, experts say. A 2019
state law will gradually raise Maryland’s minimum
wage, now at $11.75, to $15 an hour by 2025 for companies with at least 15 employees. Meanwhile, the
proposed Raise the Wage Act of 2021 would phase in
a federal minimum wage of $15 an hour by 2025.
“Raising wages for low-wage workers has a dispro-
portionate impact on women, who are more likely
to be in low-paying jobs,” said David Cooper, senior
economic analyst with Washington-based Economic
Policy Institute.
Proponents say an increase in the $7.25 per hour
federal minimum wage, the rate for more than a decade, is long overdue.
It would increase the earnings of 32 million workers, or 21% of the workforce, according to the institute. And it would broadly benefit women workers,
the nonprofit think tank says, offering a pay raise to
nearly 19 million women — roughly one in four female workers in the United States.
A full-time federal minimum wage worker today
Aisha Ruffin, 39, who has worked in housekeeping at the University of Maryland Baltimore’s Campus
Center for three years, struggles to make ends meet at her $13.75 hourly wage. Ruffin, who was named
Employee of the Month in July, has not had a wage increase since she started. Ruffin said that after taxes
her hourly take-home pay is $8.25. PHOTO BY AMY DAVIS
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