BOSTON — Noel Lozada was driven to pursue a career in health care services after watching her aunt struggle to provide for her four children, including one born with Down syndrome.
“Those times were very different than today, and yet they’re still the same,” said Lozada, an assistant manager at Bridgewell and president of SEIU Local 509’s private sector chapter.
Indeed, Lozada has to work upward of 60 to 70 hours a week to provide for her family and has lost count of the family milestones she has missed because of work.
“I make choices every day of whether I spend time with my family or I spend time with the most vulnerable people on the planet, and making that choice is so heart wrenching,” she said during a Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development hearing on Monday.
Lozada supported a bill (H 2191) that would establish a minimum wage for enhanced care workers of $25 per hour. The minimum wage would then be adjusted for inflation each year under the bill.
The legislation has support from dozens of co-sponsors and several health care workers and representatives of SEIU Local 509 spoke in support of the proposal.
The committee’s hearing agenda also featured bills (H 2107 / S 1349) to raise the state’s minimum wage from $15 to $20 an hour and increase the tipped minimum wage from $6.25 to $12 an hour by 2030. After that, minimum wages would be adjusted each year based on the Consumer Price Index. The tipped minimum wage would also be adjusted annually so it stays at 60% of the minimum wage.
Similar bills filed in the House and Senate died in both chambers last session.
Raising the state’s minimum wage is not only “an economic imperative, it’s a moral one,” said Rep. Carmine Lawrence Gentile, a Sudbury Democrat co-sponsoring the House version.
Gentile noted that a full-time worker making the minimum wage struggles with basic living expenses — much less being able to buy a home or send a child to college. When workers have more disposable income they are also more likely to spend it at local businesses, boosting the state’s economy, he said.
In 2018, then-Gov. Charlie Baker signed legislation that gradually raised the minimum wage from $11 to $15 per hour by 2023. The rate has held at $15 per hour for nearly three years, while living costs have risen.
MIT’s Living Wage Calculator estimated this year that an adult with no children would need to make $28.88 to earn a “living wage,” compared with $21.35 per hour in 2023.
MIT’s Living Wage Calculator estimated this year that an adult with no children would need to make $28.88 to earn a “living wage,” compared with $21.35 per hour in 2023.
A Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2025 released last week by The Boston Foundation and Boston Indicators shows the gap widening between those who can afford to live in the Greater Boston area and those who can’t.
The annual income a household needs to afford an “entry-level” home rose from $98,000 in 2021 to more than $162,000 in 2025, assuming a 3.5% down payment, according to the report. This trend is squeezing renters out of making the leap to home ownership. Just 15% of renter households can afford an “entry-level” home — down from 30% in 2021.
New York, San Jose, San Francisco and San Diego were the only four markets with higher rental prices than Boston, according to the report, which cited the Zillow Observed Rent Index that tracks changes in market rents across housing types. In September 2025, the ZORI found rent for the Boston area was almost $3,000 per month, not including other housing costs like heat, electricity and water.
Massachusetts Teachers Association President Max Page said the bill would also apply to municipal workers like teacher aides and school cafeteria workers who aren’t currently covered by the state minimum wage.
“This is such a basic way that we improve the lives of working people,” Page said during the hearing, adding that more than a million workers would see wage increases as a result of the bills.
The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, but 34 states have minimum wages higher than that. While Massachusetts was one of the first states in the country to reach a $15 minimum wage, it’s fallen behind other states that have already surpassed that threshold like Connecticut, New Jersey, California and Washington — although no states have reached $20 yet, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Raising wages has been a hot topic at the State House in the past, but Page and Gentile were the only two who offered in-person or virtual comments on the bills during the hearing.
Meanwhile, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a small business advocacy association with thousands of members across the state, released a statement Monday with its comments for the committee.
“Setting the base wage at $20 per hour will have a disproportionately negative impact on the state’s smaller employers. To absorb these added labor expenses, small businesses will be forced to raise prices, cut worker hours, reduce jobs, or where available, automate. It’s no wonder Massachusetts is ranked one of the highest cost states in the nation to conduct business,” said NFIB Massachusetts state director, Christopher Carlozzi.
Carlozzi referred to a CNBC report that ranked Massachusetts No. 20 in its “America’s Top States for Business.”
In May 2023, NFIB released a study that showed raising the minimum wage to $20 per hour over the following decade would result in about 23,000 job losses and a real economic output loss of more than $3.4 billion.
Several union workers and representatives also spoke in support of bills ( H 2168 and S 1319) that would allow workers to receive unemployment benefits if a dispute — like a strike — lasts more than 30 days. Workers could also collect benefits sooner if employers hire replacement workers.
Supporters said that the bills, from Sen. Paul Feeney and Rep. Lindsay Sabadosa, would level the playing field during negotiations as employers may stall and refuse to bargain in good faith during strikes while employees struggle to support themselves without pay or benefits.
NFIB said the bills would worsen the state’s existing unemployment insurance crisis.
“Now is not the time to encourage increased use of the unemployment trust fund in its fragile state,” Carlozzi said.
Similar bills introduced by Feeney and Sabadosa died last session.