Advertisement Baltimore City councilwoman proposes $15 minimum wage Mary Pat Clarke introduced bill Monday Share Shares Copy Link Copy

A Baltimore City councilwoman introduced a bill Monday that would raise the city's minimum wage to $15 an hour.Download the WBAL app.City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke introduced the bill that was co-sponsored by eight of the 15 councilmembers. Under her bill, the minimum wage would be $15 an hour by 2020. Clarke says the bill could impact the wages of 25 percent of the city's workforce.The Maryland General Assembly passed a bill during the 2014 session to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by July 2018. The state's current minimum wage is $8.25 an hour, $1 more than the federal rate."Our great civic reawakening to the truth that there is no peace without justice," Clarke said. "The economic justice we seek matters in raising up families and neighborhoods to their just and equal status throughout the city."Critics of a $15 minimum wage say the pay increase would reduce opportunities for young job seekers, and that it's bad for the economy."This effort is major and meaningful. It will require sacrifices and a unified commitment to pull together because the economic justice we seek matters," Clarke said."I think the only critics are the ones that can survive. The only critics are the ones that can send their children to college," supporter Onnaday McIntosh Grigg said.Other members of City Council joined Clarke, including President Jack Young. Ben Jealous, the former president of the NAACP, is also supporting the bill."Let us be clear, it would already be $15 per hour if it had kept up with inflation," Jealous said.Small business owner Penny Troutner thinks the increase would be good for business."If employees in general have more money I think there will be more money to go around for all of us and then the small businesses would have the funds to pay their employees more," Troutner said.Mike O'Halloran, Maryland director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, disagrees."We've seen things in Seattle and San Francisco and Oakland where we've heard from small businesses particularly those in the restaurant industry that have just had to shut their doors," O'Halloran said.O'Halloran said the minimum wage isn't supposed to be a livable wage."It's meant to a beginning wage and that way an employee can work their way up the wage chain," he said.Also during Monday's City Council meeting, councilmembers voted on two amendments to the city charter.The first would change the makeup of the Board of Estimates. Right now, the board, which executes fiscal policy for the city, has five voting members. The change would limit the board to the mayor, comptroller and City Council president and exclude the city solicitor and director of public works.The second would allow the City Council to increase spending in the city budget.The change would have to be decided by voters in the November election. However, both could be vetoed by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.WBAL-TV 11 News reporter Omar Jimenez contributed to this story.22874254