Central MA Battle Brewing Over Statewide Minimum Wage Increases

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Nicholas Handy, GoLocalWorcester Contributor

Massachusetts minimum wage will be the highest of any state by the time 2017 comes rolling around, prompting battles both regionally and statewide as to whether or not signing such a decision into law was a good idea.

Two new studies – one by the Department of Labor and the other by the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center – both have data points suggesting that the minimum wage increases will be beneficial to both Central Massachusetts and the Commonwealth as a whole, saying that increased jobs and sales will both occur as a result of increasing minimum wage from $8 an hour to $11 an hour.

"The largest impact will be in areas where there are more low-wage workers, but there are lower-wage workers in most cities and towns in the Commonwealth," said Noah Berger, executive director of the nonprofit Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center.

According to the Department of Labor, the 13 states that increased their minimum wage as of January 1, 2014 have seen a faster growth of jobs than the other states in the nation, data that conflicts a report by the Congressional Budget Office that said that raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour – as the White House supports – would cost 500,000 jobs.

Keeping Pace With Inflation

According to data from the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center report, over 100,000 Central Massachusetts residents will be directly affected by the minimum wage increase, meaning that the worker is currently making less than $11 per hour.

Because a wealth of employees will be affected by receiving more money, that money will be returned to the economy, therefore making the minimum wage increase a good move for Massachusetts. If more people are able to spend more money, the economy will undoubtedly improve.

“Increasing the minimum wage to $11 per hour will give hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts workers a raise and provide them and their families with additional resources to pay for basic necessities,” says the report. “A full-time minimum wage worker in Massachusetts makes $16,000 in 2014, over $5,500 less (when adjusted for inflation) than he or she will earn if the minimum wage had maintained its value since 1968 (which was equal to about $10.86 per hour, or $21,720 a year, in today’s dollars). Increasing the minimum wage to $11 by 2017 would raise the wages of approximately 605,000 workers.”

Destroying Small Businesses

While a variety of reports and studies have been commissioned and data suggests that a minimum wage increase would be beneficial to the economy, both statewide and locally, there are still detractors that believe that increasing wages could destroy local businesses throughout the Commonwealth.

In places like Worcester where small businesses have already reported struggles in developing small businesses, increasing the minimum wage could detract people from shopping locally, instead opting for cheaper international chains and online options.

“Communities across Massachusetts should worry about the future of their downtowns and the small businesses that make them unique and special,” said Jon Hurst, President of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. “In the age of Internet commerce, the competition for customers is fierce and the margins for small businesses are slim. By passing this unbalanced law, Beacon Hill has ignored these realities and turned a deaf ear to the pleas of our Main Street businesses.”

Related Slideshow: Worcester’s Tech Startups

Prev Next

BuzzLanes

Buzz Lanes started out as a small idea for a Business Model Competition at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Success there led to the semifinalist round at Harvard, and a new business that aims to accelerate the careers of talented musicians that don’t have big marketing campaign resources.

“As graduates of WPI’s School of Business, and with several years of experience in the entertainment world, we decided to push forward and make Buzz Lanes a reality,” said Gonazlo Cruz Blanco, the man behind Buzz Lanes.

A native of Spain, Blanco's passion for music and business led to the creation of this monthly subscription music platform. One of the bands he’s promoting right now is Heffay, a Worcester Hip Hop band.

“It’s a win-win situation: musicians grow their fan base and connect with new fans, and the fans will always have the opportunity to find new music they haven’t heard before.”

The company's online Beta version launches April 4, 2014

Prev Next

Salespod (Repsly)

Salespod makes mobile/cloud software for organizations to manage field teams and the data that they collect.

“We currently have 2200 users in 31 countries, and are growing 10 to 15 percent per month. We are getting ready to launch a major marketing initiative and expect to grow to over 10,000 users this year,” said Mat Brogie, Salespod, Inc. COO.

“The software runs on Apple and Android smartphones and tablets, and there is a web based management console that managers use to see where and when field reps perform their activities, and to analyze the data these field reps generate.”

Salespod has a research and development office in Zagreb, Croatia, and has established the Worcester office to launch its US presence. The company started in Worcester last year with only 800 users.

“There is a growing culture entrepreneurism in the city, and the physical changes in town add to the energy that is building … not to mention the economics are extremely friendly for a start-up trying to maximize the use of cash.”

Salespod announced in March that they would be making a name/logo change to Repsly.

Prev Next

Incite Advisors, Inc

Incite Advisors, Inc. provides Web application development services for applications in the healthcare and life sciences.

“We are focused on data driven applications and visualizing big data. Our largest client has hired us to develop a web/mobile application that allows doctors to capture patient diagnostic information in the natural course of their work,” said Incite founder and President Ronald Ranauro.

“The application will allow for rapid updates as medical knowledge advances. The idea is that by using the computer care teams can more easily coordinate services. We are also developing a web application for visualizing and searching big picture trends in clinical trials. In support of our work, we have developed an open source software toolkit called BoxspringJS.”

Ranauro grew up in Central Massachusetts and graduated from WPI. He said his company is reaching out to the student population to offer training and real world experience on paid customer projects.

Prev Next

Technocopia

Technocopia is a non-profit (tax-exempt status pending) geared towards creating open-source technologies that will benefit the whole world. As part of this mission they are opening a “hackerspace” in Worcester, which will serve as a home-base for their research and development of these technologies, as well as a common collaborative space for anyone in Central Massachusetts to make their own projects into reality.

Their hackerspaces feature a lounge, kitchen, conference space and computer stations. Technocopia intends to support the development of open-source technology that will allow any individual, family, or community to sustainably and independently satisfy their own humanitarian needs. These needs are defined loosely as things such as nutritious food, clean water, shelter, electricity, medicine, and free access to knowledge (the internet).

Prev Next

Mass Biomedical

Self-described as “World class incubators for world class science,” Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives (MBI) is dedicated to job creation and innovative healthcare throughout Massachusetts by promoting the growth of start-up biomedical companies. MBI is committed to collaborating with the academic, business and government communities to promote Massachusetts as the world leader in the health sciences industry.

Kevin O’Sullivan is the President & CEO of MBI, located on Prescott Street. O’Sullivan describes the company as a private, independent economic development organization that serves as a catalyst for life science and healthcare innovation.

“We help start biomedical companies and create jobs within the Biotechnology, Medical Device, Informatics, and Biomanufacturing industry by providing secure, clean bench and sink surface, staff trained and fully licensed laboratory space for usage by ‘seed stage’ companies. Building and maintaining collaborative affiliations and partnerships are essential to our success.”

Prev Next

MassDiGI

What would a tech company list be without a little fun? While neighboring Rhode Island smarts over Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios disaster, MassDiGI is pushing academic cooperation, entrepreneurship and economic development across the Massachusetts digital and video games ecosystem.

MassDiGI is a US Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration (EDA) University Center. Since starting up, MassDiGI has launched several initiatives that support entrepreneurship and strengthen the talent pipeline between higher education and the game industry.

Timothy Loew, Executive Director of MassDiGI, formerly held senior positions in business, development and academic planning at Becker College.

Prev Next

Compex Software

Jonathan Vo, Principal and Founder of Compex Software, is another Worcester Polytechnic Institute grad succeeding in the WPI neighborhood.

Vo’s software company has successfully deployed many of its software applications at hundreds of specialized operations throughout the US. Like others on this list, Compex Software came about as result of a student project. Vo did so well that he was recommended to an independent company and he’s never looked back.

Compex Software designs, develops and implements integrated business management software solutions to help small- and medium- sized businesses manage their operations. This includes manufacturing, inventory tracking, job costing, quality control, and accounting.

Prev Next

CellMosaic

Yumei Huang is the Founder, President & CEO, CellMosaic, Inc. The company recently signed a collaboration research agreement (CRADA) with the National Cancer Institute to co-develop two AqT based conjugate drugs. One is an antibody-drug conjugate for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma and another is a protein-drug conjugate targeting CA125 for the treatment of ovarian cancer.

Under the agreement, NCI will provide its proprietary antibody and CellMosaic will design and synthesize an antibody-drug conjugate and protein-drug conjugate using its proprietary AqT linker and advanced conjugation processes. The CRADA grants CellMosaic an exclusive license option from NCI for any new products developed under this CRADA.