For the second time in less than a month, the Portland City Council will face a defining moment.

On June 24, the question was whether the city would continue to offer General Assistance to asylum seekers, a group that has been failed by federal and state governments. That squeaked by on a vote of 5-4.

On Monday, the question will be whether to create a city minimum wage higher than the state minimum. It is a policy change that would affect more than the few hundred people who are currently scraping by at $7.50 an hour and one that would put Portland’s progressive values to the test. Do the city’s leaders really mean what they tell voters about building a city where everyone has a chance to succeed?

On Monday, we’ll find out.

We strongly support the city taking this step. We would prefer if there were a federal increase in the minimum wage, but the amount of cooperation necessary to make that happen seems out of reach for the current Congress. We also would rather see a statewide increase in the minimum wage, but the Legislature has adjourned and there won’t be another chance to increase it until 2017.

The city, the level of government closest to the people, has been left to decide on its own what to do, and there is nowhere to pass the buck. The city should accept this challenge and pass a higher minimum wage.

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City officials have been tossing around ideas about the minimum wage since early 2014. Currently, two proposals are up for discussion.

The recommendation of the council’s Finance Committee calls for a one-time increase to $8.75 an hour. Mayor Michael Brennan and two councilors, Jon Hinck and Justin Costa, are calling for a more ambitious hike, to $10.10 an hour, rising to $10.68 in 2017 and increasing along with inflation after that.

Of the two, we support the second. An $8.75 minimum would still leave a mother of two children well below the poverty line, even if she never took a day off. It takes at least $10 an hour to nudge above that line, an important frontier. No one working full time should be stuck in poverty.

This is an important distinction. The city’s Green Party has circulated petitions to put a $15-an-hour minimum wage on the ballot this fall. Anyone who thinks a sudden increase that high would be a burden on local businesses should consider $10.10 an opportunity that now exists. A minimum wage that keeps people in poverty will not look like enough for people who might support the $15 referendum – but $10.10 might.

Opponents of any increase say it will put upward pressure on wages, but that is its most attractive feature. Some of the city’s biggest problems are the high cost of its social services budget and the lack of affordable housing. Both are exacerbated by low wages. If people could earn enough from work to afford rent and food, there would be less stress on the system.

Portland has been a progressive city that has given generations of people from all over the world the chance to earn a living and make a life for their families. Raising the minimum wage would continue that tradition.

What kind of city is Portland now? We may find out Monday.


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