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Bangor Delays Local Minimum Wage Hike

A citywide minimum wage increase that was supposed to go into effect Jan. 1, has been delayed for six months in Bangor while legislative efforts are underway to implement a citizen initiative for a statewide hourly wage hike.

Members of the Bangor City Council, such as Joe Perry, say they had originally been prepared to repeal the local minimum wage entirely in the event the citizen initiative on a higher minimum wage was approved by the voters.

“Because of concern about what they might do in Augusta in this legislative session, instead of repealing it, we seek to push this off until July 1 of next year to see what happens during this legislative session,” Perry says. “I suppose there’s no harm in keeping this on the books in case they do make changes that brings the state minimum wage below ours — which is highly unlikely.”

Members of the Council say that leaving the wage ordinance in place would have potentially required employers to make payroll changes twice in one week. Councilor Gibran Graham cast the lone dissenting vote against the deferment.

“Compromise is obviously a very important part of government and elected officials, and I think there are many things that we as elected officials may need to compromise on for the end result to be the betterment of our constituents,” he says. “But I do not believe that people’s rights — and I believe that people have the right to a fair wage — that people’s rights are not something that should be compromised on.”

The increase delayed Monday evening by the Bangor City Council would have raised hourly wages from the current $7.50 per hour to $8.25.