The following piece was submitted by Progressive Watertown:
There are the five state-wide ballot questions on the November 5, 2024 ballot.
- Question 1: Determining State Auditor’s Authority to Audit the Legislature
- Question 2: Eliminating the use of the MCAS as a Graduation Requirement
- Question 3: Unionization for Transportation Network Drivers (Uber and Lyft)
- Question 4: Limited Legalization and Regulation of Certain Natural Psychedelic Substances (such as Psilocybin)
- Question #5: Minimum Wage for Tipped Workers.
Progressive Mass has endorsed all five ballot questions. Progressive Watertown, a chapter, has reviewed and endorsed Questions 2 and 5. Progressive Watertown did not review the other questions.
Yes on 2 supports the elimination of the MCAS as a high school graduation requirement. It does not end the use of MCAS for evaluative purposes.
Massachusetts is one of only 11 states still including a test as a high school graduation requirement. The current requirement reduces the significance GPAs, academic coursework and teacher evaluations, all which are all based on state education standards, the highest in the nation.
Proponents agree that while there must be graduation standards, a standardized test is not a wise or necessary measure, and can negatively impact students with disabilities and those from immigrant households. Although opponents say we need to test this out, the test has already been performed.
During COVID, the requirement was suspended. According to Dr. Kruger, Associate Professor of Counseling and Applied Educational Psychology at Northeastern, the state’s graduation rates during this period (2017-2022) are “consistent with the assertion that MCAS graduation requirement is holding back historically underserved students from graduating on time.” Kruger highlighted that the increase in graduation rates of Blacks, Latinos, Low-Income Students, Students with Disabilities, and English Language Learners during the suspension “far exceeded what occurred to their graduation rates during the three years prior to the suspension” which had not improved at all. Let’s make the suspension permanent with a yes on 2.
Question 5 concerns ensuring a minimum wage for tipped workers. Yes on 5 would introduce a gradual increase from $6.75 per hour to $15.00 per hour, the state minimum, in 2029. It only increases the base pay. There is an option to pool tips, once all employees earn the state minimum wage.
The Center for State Policy Analysis at Tufts University found that the change “would likely increase earnings” for Massachusetts’ “50,000 waiters and waitresses, 20,000 bartenders, and 5,000 manicurists and pedicurists.” The same study found that in states without a tipped wage, “tipping habits live on.”
Opponents spotlight the increased costs for restaurants and other businesses but, per the study, “the experience of other states suggests that the change is manageable.” Proponents of this measure point out that many small businesses in the state already pay the minimum wage; it is often the big corporations that do not.
Opponents also include some tipped workers who earn very high tips. They are the exception and not the rule. Per the study findings, “median pay for waiters, bartenders, and workers in nail salons in Massachusetts is under $17 per hour, meaning that half earn less than that amount,” most of whom are women. The median wage for non-tipped workers is $29 per hour.
Again, the big corporations benefit the most. A low base pay lowers their costs because consumers subsidize the wages for tipped workers. Let’s end this exploitation by passing this measure.
More information about all of the ballot questions – pro and con – is available in the Voter Booklet distributed to all households by the Secretary of State. More information about the Progressive MA Yes votes is at https://www.progressivemass.com/this-november-vote-yes/.
Update: in 11 districts, including Middlesex 10 (Watertown C9 and all of D), there will be an additional question. Question 6 is a non binding question asking, “Shall the Representative from this District be instructed to vote for legislation to create a single-payer system of universal health care, that would provide all Massachusetts residents with comprehensive health care coverage including the freedom to choose doctors and other health care professionals, facilities, and services and that would eliminate the role of insurance companies in healthcare by creating a publicly administered insurance trust fund?”
As I shared your comments with some who, like me, abhor the thought of a Sanders/Harris single-payer system of universal health care, someone came up with what an honest version of Question 6 should read:
“ Shall the Representative from this District be instructed to vote for legislation to mandate publicly-administered health care forcing Massachusetts residents to accept mediocre treatment from doctors and other health care professionals unable to avoid having price and service controls imposed on them, at neglected and limited facilities, and that would destroy a regulated but competitive private insurance market and replace it with a bureaucratically-controlled public insurance trust fund that will require substantial additional tax revenue exceeding the revenues of those outlawed health insurers?”
Are you suggesting that our current system of health care delivery works well for everyone? Steward Health Care might be an excellent case study to look at some of the failures of our system.
I wonder how you would fix things? Don’t say repeal Obamacare/Romneycare because it’s actually popular.
No. Where did I suggest that? My health coverage has always work well for me, however. Having had a job helped a lot!
Didn’t Obamacare, at al, fixed most problems? And please stop assuming what I would or would not say. Feel free to comment after I say something.
Are you for universal care? If so, why? How would you fix whatever you perceive is wrong with the system? Let’s stay on subject, shall we?
the concept of a single payer system sounds very efficient and simple. I tried to see my primary doctor in a different location because it would have been more convenient but have been denied because, they say it is out of network. I can still go but it would cost more. Eliminating this useless insurance bureaucracy would be a blessing. Insurance companies ad nothing to the equation of healthcare and cost. There is no competition, only extra overhead with a lack of service. One size covers all is a christian and fundamentally American way to care for one another.