Testimony concerning a Senate Resolution Creating a Special Legislative Commission to Study and Review Rhode Island’s Minimum Wage

Testimony concerning a Senate Resolution Creating a Special Legislative Commission to Study and Review Rhode Island’s Minimum Wage: S-2124
Senate Committee on Labor
April 3, 2024
Alan Krinsky, Director of Research & Fiscal Policy

The Economic Progress Institute does not believe it necessary for the Senate to establish a Commission to Study and Review Rhode Island’s Minimum Wage. We already know that the state’s minimum wage is far below a living wage, especially for families with children. The Economic Progress Institute demonstrated this with our publication The 2022 Rhode Island Standard of Need, which showed that a single adult working full-time in 2022 needed to earn $16.79 per hour to cover basic needs. Families with children needed even more earnings to make ends meet.1 Inflation has certainly increased the amount of income required to meet basic needs.

We also believe that if there is a commission, it should be a fully independent one. We applaud the bill’s sponsor, Senator Raptakis, for requiring the appointment of an academic expert. We would support expanded inclusion of independent analysts, ideally from universities and non-partisan non-profits, with some expertise in fiscal matters. However, we do not think that the inclusion, for example, of a representative of the NFIB adds great value to the commission. The NFIB is unalterably opposed to any increase in the minimum wage from an ideological perspective, and no amount of testimony or data will be likely to change that.

The members of a commission such as this one must be willing to consider all relevant information, including information that might contradict their current views. For example, we know that nationally if the minimum wage had kept up with productivity over the last half-century, it would reached $23/hour in 2021 (see https://cepr.net/the-26-an-hou...). Commissioners must be willing to entertain such data and therefore reach a conclusion that even the $15/hour in place beginning with January 1, 2025 might not be high enough. The legislation calls for “recommendations that would benefit all Rhode Islanders,” and any such recommendations must take into consideration what will benefit low-wage workers and families.

The Economic Progress Institute supports evidence-based and data-informed policy. However, there already exists an abundance of data indicating that the current state and federal minimum wage levels are woefully inadequate. The proposed commission risks being duplicative and could potentially delay the inevitable and necessary decision to increase the minimum wage in Rhode Island. We support increasing the minimum wage further without waiting for a commission to produce a report.