By Matt Bittle

DOVER — Delaware took another step toward a $15 minimum wage Thursday, with the Senate passing a bill on party lines that would raise the wage floor from $9.25 to $15 by 2025.

In a 14-7 vote, senators sent the measure to the House after about an hour of debate. The bill was discussed in a crowded committee hearing and released to the full Senate on Wednesday.

Senate Bill 15 would increase the wage floor Jan. 1 of each of the next four years. It would start by jumping to $10.50 in 2022, followed by $11.75 in 2023 and $13.25 in 2024, before hitting $15 in 2025.

Last raised in 2019, Delaware’s minimum wage is currently $2 more than the federal mark. Twenty-two states have a minimum wage higher than $9.25, including seven that are in the process of raising it to $15. Maryland and New Jersey are among those phasing in a $15 wage, while Washington D.C., has already done so.

Supporters believe the proposal will help reduce systemic inequality by putting more money in people’s pockets.

“We called them essential employees when we needed them; now, they deserve our help in lifting them out of poverty,” main sponsor Sen. Jack Walsh, D-Stanton, said in reference to the plaudits given to front-line personnel, like grocery store workers, over the past year.

Backers noted that wages have not kept up with the cost of living, even as worker productivity has increased, with Sen. Walsh describing passage as a moral imperative.

Raising pay will boost the economy because more people will be buying goods and services, President Pro Tempore Dave Sokola, D-Newark, said: "There’s a little bit of a churn."

But Republicans raised plenty of objections, arguing that the bill will lead to layoffs, more automation, higher prices and business closures, therefore harming the very people the increase seeks to help.

Sen. Dave Lawson, R-Marydel, said, “It feels good today, but it’s going to hurt like hell tomorrow.”

Members of the GOP urged Democrats to invest in job-training programs instead.

Minority Whip Brian Pettyjohn, R-Georgetown, recalled his time working minimum-wage jobs in high school and college, citing it as a valuable learning experience teenagers won’t be able to get if the bill becomes law.

“Prove yourself. Prove yourself and work hard, and you will be compensated, either by the business that you’re working in or, as you acquire those skills and hone your craft, by another business that will pay you more,” he told colleagues.

Now is an especially bad time to place another burden on businesses and nonprofits, which have been under restrictions for the past year due to COVID-19, opponents said. The hospitality industry in particular is struggling mightily: William Sullivan of the Delaware Hotel and Lodging Association, said Wednesday that business is down 60% as a result of the pandemic, and many restaurant owners have pointed to similar struggles.

Minority Leader Gerald Hocker, R-Ocean View, owns several small businesses in Sussex County. He described the proposal as a “job killer, not a job helper.”

“I have produced more jobs than probably all the rest of this body put together,” he said, questioning whether any Democratic senators have managed payroll and signed checks.

But GOP arguments failed to sway any Democrats, who maintained that the bill will help many people.

“They want and deserve a wage that respects the dignity of their work,” Majority Whip Elizabeth “Tizzy” Lockman, D-Wilmington, said of low-wage workers.

According to the Delaware Department of Labor, close to 150,000 residents would be impacted by Senate Bill 15, including 35,000 currently earning the state minimum wage.

Much of the disagreement centers on who is paid minimum wage now: Is it younger people working their first jobs to get experience and some spending money, or is it adults, many of them single parents, trying desperately to stay afloat?

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 82.3 million Americans 16 and older were paid by the hour in 2019. Of those, 1.6 million made the federal minimum wage of $7.25 (or less).

Forty-three percent of minimum-wage earners were no older than 24, and 55% worked fewer than 35 hours per week, per the BLS.

The Economic Policy Institute, a pro-labor think tank, reports that 51% of workers who would benefit from a $15 minimum wage nationally are adults between the ages of 25 and 54, with only 10% being teenagers. Fifty-four percent work full time, and 28% have children, per the institute, which also says a wage hike would particularly benefit people of color.

The Congressional Budget Office released a report last month concluding that a $15 federal minimum wage would result in 1.4 million people losing their jobs (a 0.9% increase in unemployment) but would also lift 900,000 people out of poverty. At least 17 million individuals across the country would see higher pay, the findings state.

Someone working 40 hours a week at $9.25 an hour pulls in $370 every week, $1,480 per month and $19,240 a year. While an adult only supporting him- or herself might be able to live on minimum wage, it quickly becomes virtually impossible for anyone with a family or other significant expenses to do so, bill supporters report.

Gov. John Carney supports the bill, which appears likely to pass the House.

Perhaps the most accurate summation of the situation Thursday came from Sen. Walsh just before roll call on the bill.

“You either agree in your heart with this, or you don’t,” he said.