State Minimum Wage Increases to $10/Hour; Tax Credits Increase

Sen. Barbara L’Italien (D-Andover).

More than 450,000 families across Massachusetts will receive a raise when the state minimum wage increases to $10 an hour and the state Earned Income Tax Credit expands by more than 50 percent in 2016.

The minimum wage increase to $10 an hour will raise the average earnings of a minimum wage worker by about $2,000 a year. According to estimates, this increase will reduce the number of Massachusetts residents living below the federal poverty level by about 3 percent.

“Seeing the minimum wage and Earned Income Tax Credit increased were among my top priorities,” said Sen. Barbara L’Italien (D-Andover). “The Senate has made shared prosperity a guiding principal of our work and Senate President Stan Rosenberg and many other senators were relentless in our efforts to see this important legislation passed and signed into law.”

The Earned Income Tax Credit expansion provides up to $500 in additional income to working families with at least three children. Families receiving the EITC have higher long-range earning potential and increased social security benefits.  Children in EITC households have increased academic scores and high-school graduation rates.

The senate proposed the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit during May, 2015, with final passage in July, 2015.

“We live in a Commonwealth, which means everyone must share in the prosperity of our vibrant economy, not just those at the top,” Senate President Stanley Rosenberg (D-Amherst) said in a statement about this legislation going into effect in 2016.

2 thoughts on “State Minimum Wage Increases to $10/Hour; Tax Credits Increase

  1. And what is going to happen to the workers who are now earning $10.00 per hour when this wage increase and EITC go into being????

    Answer: Those earning $10.00 per hour BEFORE everyone is elevated to $10.00 per hour will also demand a salary increase commensurate with the wage spread each previously experienced. An employer CANNOT give an increase to an inexperienced, marginal worker without expecting those at the next level of earnings to also demand an increase. And on it goes. So what has been accomplished? NOTHING except that wages are increased throughout the entire spectrum.

    The real answer to the wage disparity is for people to GET EDUCATED and to increase their level of experience so that they increase their value to an employer.