PM_Rally_Back_of_Shirt.jpgEconomic Justice

While so many working and middle-class families are struggling to get by, the richest keep getting richer and the corporations they own continue to cut wages and benefits, and ship our jobs and hide their assets overseas. To build a strong middle class, we need to make our government and employers work for all of us, not just the rich and powerful.

Labor rights and livable wages
Over the years, PM has led the fight in Maryland that has won better protections and conditions for workers and raised the minimum wage in 2006. In 2007 Maryland enacted the nation’s first statewide Living Wage law, requiring large, for-profit corporations with a state service contract to pay those workers enough to live without food stamps.

Raise the minimum wage
Research shows that nearly 300,000 workers in Maryland would be directly helped by an increase in the minimum wage. We are optimistic of passing a mandated increase to $10 per hour over three years pegged to inflation, barely a livable wage for a family of four.

Establish a paid sick days standard
for Maryland by requiring employers to allow workers to earn a limited number of annual paid sick days. Forty percent of Maryland’s private-sector workers – nearly 820,000 people – have no option to take time off with pay if they’re ill, according to estimates from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Additional Economic Justice Issue Areas and Accomplishments

Pregnant workers protection
We helped enact this important law in 2013 that requires employers for the first time to explore specified means of reasonable accommodation for workers during pregnancy.

Healthcare
As Maryland coordinator for Health Care for America Now and a leading member of the Health Care for All! coalition, PM was instrumental in passing the Affordable Care Act, the President’s national health care reform and the Maryland Healthcare Affordability Proposal to expand health care coverage, access, quality and affordability, as first steps toward universal health care coverage in the state. Read more.


Education
Given the proven direct correlation between educational achievement with economic health and social advancement for both states and communities, Progressive Maryland continues to fight alongside allies to improve educational quality and opportunity, and the funding necessary to preserve it.

  • Public Schools- The investment taxpayers have made in our schools has earned Maryland public schools national ranking as #1 for the past five years, and allows us to shrink class sizes, improve teacher pay and pensions, raise teacher quality, and shrink the achievement gap. PM and allies secured $400 million in funding for public school construction and repair in 2007, and full funding for the multi-year Thornton public education funding plan.
  • Higher Education- PM has worked to limit tuition increases at public colleges and universities, enabling more youth to attend, pursue promising careers, and reduce their college debt burden -and strengthening our state’s economy and future.
  • The Dream Act- PM helped pass this in 2011 to make college affordable and possible for deserving immigrant youth, knowing the future payoff for our state will be many times the cost.
  • Early Childhood- We recently achieved passage of a bill to expand the state’s access to federal funding and reporting on the progress of all its early education programs including: Pre-K, Head Start, Family Literacy, child care and family support centers, Healthy Family sites, home visiting, and community health programs.