News & Media

The Legislature has reached an agreement on a deal to raise the minimum wage to $15, institute paid family and medical leave and create a permanent sales tax holiday, in an attempt to keep multiple proposed ballot questions off the November 2018 ballot.

The Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee released a bill Wednesday morning. Both the House and the Senate plan to vote on the bill Wednesday and send it to Gov. Charlie Baker’s desk.

House Speaker Robert DeLeo, D-Winthrop, called it a “fair compromise” that “will be fair to the workers to the commonwealth and fair to the businesses as well.”

Advocates for the ballot questions have until July 3 to submit their final signatures to Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, so the Legislature is under a tight deadline to act.

Baker had been pushing for a compromise to keep the questions off the ballot. The governor said Wednesday morning that he has not yet read the legislation, but he called the agreement “good news.”

Read more here