Portland voters approve $19 an hour minimum wage plan with 63% support

Portland minimum wage plan: Residents in Portland have voted to raise the city’s minimum wage to $19 an hour over the next three years. The proposal passed easily on November 4 with 63% of voters in favor. The new plan will slowly increase wages until 2028, helping workers in the city earn more to keep up with rising living costs.

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Increase until 2028

Currently the city’s minimum wage is $15.50 per hour in 2025. Starting next year, it will rise to $16.75 per hour in 2026. By 2027, workers will see another increase, taking the minimum wage to $17.75. The final jump will come in 2028 when it officially reaches $19 per hour. After that, the city will continue adjusting the wage each year based on the cost of living.

State and city Rules on wages

Across Maine, the state’s current minimum wage is $14.65 per hour. But the Maine Department of Labor already announced that it will go up by another 45 cents starting January 1, 2026. That will bring the statewide minimum wage to $15.10.

Portland has a different rule from most of Maine because voters in the city already approved their own minimum wage system in 2020. That vote made it possible to raise the local minimum wage to $15 by 2024, and it took effect in 2021. According to the city’s law, that rule cannot be changed for five years unless people vote for a new change which is what just happened.

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Under Maine’s 2016 law the state must increase the minimum wage every year according to the cost of living in the Northeast region. But cities like Portland and Rockland follow their own local system, which uses the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) to track inflation.

Portland Minimum wage plan Increase

Based on the new proposal, Portland residents who voted approved an initiative to gradually raise the minimum wage to $19 an hour by 2028. The staggered increase agreement is as follows:

• US$16.75 on January 1, 2026
• US$17.75 on January 1, 2027
• US$19.00 on January 1, 2028

The proposal passed with strong support, as 63% of voters agreed with the planned wage increases for each phase.