State Democratic lawmakers are pushing a bill that would allow Maryland voters to raise the minimum wage from $15 to $20 — including for workers in the service industry — but it’s receiving a thumbs down from Republicans

“The minimum wage in Maryland is not enough to meet the cost of living,” Del. Adrian Boafo of Prince George’s County said at a press conference in Annapolis Thursday. “All working people deserve to be able to earn enough when they work — to be able to feed their families and afford a place to live.”

Boafo and Sen. Cory McCray from Baltimore City, both Democrats, are sponsoring the Maryland No Tax on Tips Act. This multi-faceted bill seeks to increase the $3.63 minimum wage for restaurant workers to $15, exempt their tips from taxation, give a $10,000 tax credit to restaurants to assist with the transition to paying higher wages and gradually increase the state’s $15 minimum wage to $20 by 2030 if voters choose to do so.

Boafo said that if Marylanders vote to raise the minimum wage, the phase-up to $20 would take longer for service workers.

Maryland’s legislature has a Democratic supermajority, but raising the minimum wage will be a tough sell for its Republican counterparts.

A collective groan erupted from the General Assembly’s joint Republican Caucus when they were informed of the bill at a press conference Thursday afternoon.

Senate Minority Leader Steve Hershey, a representative of the upper Eastern Shore, called it “dead on arrival.”

Legislation passed in 2019 was poised to gradually increase Maryland’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025. Gov. Wes Moore overrode the phase-up process with a bill sponsored on behalf of his administration in 2023. Because of his legislation, Maryland’s minimum wage was raised to $15 in January 2024.

“You’re saying ‘the fight for 15’ has become ‘the tussle for 20?’” asked House Minority Leader Jason Buckel of Allegany County.

In an interview, Del. Seth Howard, a Republican representing Anne Arundel County, said there’s no current law against businesses paying employees $20 an hour.

“If they’re going to come down here and they’re going to support a minimum wage bill that’s going to mandate all businesses pay $20, they better damn well be paying $20 for a long time before they get down here and mandate other small businesses do it,” he said.

A Hart Research Associates poll of 500 likely Maryland voters conducted between Jan. 13 and 18 found that 63% favor raising the minimum wage to $20.

According to Saru Jayaraman, the president of One Fair Wage, a national organization that works to end subminimum wages for service workers, Black women are the majority of tipped workers in Maryland.

Christian Nunez, the president of the National Organization for Women, said that the subminimum wage for service industry employees is “a continuous way that racism and sexism” plays a role in how people are paid.

Khadija Sheriff has worked in Maryland’s tipped service industry for three years. She said Thursday that workers are struggling to cover the rising cost of living and that having to fill the gap between the $3.63 minimum wage and the state’s $15 minimum wage with tips leaves workers vulnerable to the will of customers, who often harass them.

“Living on subminimum wage and relying on tips is incredibly unstable. Our rent and bills don’t fluctuate with the economy, but our tips do,” she said. “It’s hard not to feel like my livelihood is at the expense of someone else’s mood.”

California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Minnesota, Montana, Alaska and Washington, D.C., all currently require restaurant and service workers to be paid the state minimum wage with tips on top.

Jayaraman said other states are on track to pass similar legislation.

“It is moving in New York. It is moving in Colorado. It is moving in Arizona and Ohio,” she said. “It can move and pass here.”

President Donald Trump campaigned on not taxing tips. Boafo said he hopes that will help the Maryland bill pass on a bipartisan basis.

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