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Why Does Delaware Have Training and Youth Wages Below Minimum Wage?

 Did you know that, for the last two years, it’s been legal to pay employees less than the state minimum wage? We’re not talking about tipped employees, either – though that is a separate issue that hasn’t been addressed since 1983.

In June 2018, Delaware’s Training Wage and Youth Wage were created as a bad-faith deal in the Delaware 149th General Assembly; an unsatisfactory compromise between the Democrats’ desire to continue increasing the state’s minimum wage based on cost-of-living increases to work toward a living wage, and the Republicans’ aim to protect businesses from increased costs of doing business.

The initial minimum wage bill, introduced in January 2017, called for the Delaware minimum wage to increase by 50 cents per year from 2017-2020, then to be increased based on cost-of-living adjustments after 2020. When the bill was ultimately defeated in March 2018, a new bill was introduced a week later to simply increase the state minimum wage by 50 cents per hour every year until 2021. The bill passed, but only in conjunction with a separate bill  that creates new wage categories for “Training” and “Youth”, allowing employers to pay new employees and employees under the age of 18 years, respectively, up to 50 cents less per hour than the minimum wage requires. The training wage rate and youth rate went into effect on January 1, 2019.

As a result of these bills, the current minimum wage in Delaware currently sits at $9.25 per hour, and there is no plan in place for further increases. With the training wage rate and youth wage rate in place, these employees now make only $8.75 per hour. By comparison, Maryland’s minimum wage is currently $11.75 per hour, New Jersey’s is $12 per hour, and New York’s is $12.50 per hour. The minimum wage in Pennsylvania is $7.25 per hour, matching the current federal minimum wage.

As a more meaningful comparison, the calculated living wage in Delaware - the hourly rate that someone must earn to support their household - is $12.60 per hour for a single adult. For a single adult with one child, that number jumps to $26.31 per hour. This means that a person now subjected to the Training Wage or Youth Wage earns less than 70% of Delaware’s living wage for a single adult, or about 33% the wage required to support themselves and one child.

Because the bill to create the Training Wage and Youth Wage was introduced and passed on the same day, people of the Delaware public had no opportunity to comment on the wage changes before they were passed. Since its passage, advocacy groups and labor organizations have loudly criticized the creation of these wage categories, arguing that those who fall in these lower-paid categories could be unfairly punished for things out of their control. For example, the Youth Wage directly harms school dropouts, 30% of whom must leave school to support their families, and some of whom earn over 50% of their family’s household income. Meanwhile, seasonal workers could now spend much of their short-duration employments earning the Training Wage, which would vastly affect their annual income.

On January 27, 2021, Democratic House member Kimberly Williams, along with 19 other representatives and eight senators, introduced House Bill 88 to categorically remove the Training Wage and Youth Wage. A committee hearing will be held on the bill within 12 legislative days of its introduction.

 

Take Action:

  • Call, write, or email your state legislators and tell them to support H.B. 88 to abolish the Training Wage and Youth Wage. You can look up contact information for your representatives at the “Who is My Legislator?” search on the Delaware General Assembly website.
  • Join the Delaware United Organizing Hub focused on abolishing the Training Wage and Youth Wage. For more information, visit their Facebook page or email DelawareUnited4All@gmail.com.

 

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