Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | December 5, 2016 | Worcester Business Journal 25 W Helping those left behind The Worcester Business Journal welcomes letters to the editor and commentary submissions. Please send submissions to Brad Kane, editor, at bkane@wbjournal.com. W ith the holiday season before us, there is no doubt we are all thinking about shopping and the gifts we want to buy for the people in our lives. With our busy schedules and holiday parties, it's easy to consider turning to the internet to get your shopping done. But that type of shopping often has consequences on your community. This holiday season, I encourage you to shop local. Not only does this support your local businesses, but it has pro- found rewards for your community. When you buy goods and services from local businesses and merchants, the money you spend stays in our communities. National research shows that for every $100 spent at a locally owned business, $48 stays in our cities and towns. That's compared to only $14 of $100 that is spent at a chain and just $1 when spent at large e-com- merce retailers. Those dollars support the essential services that we all rely on, including police, fire, schools, streets and more. Local and indepen- dent small businesses are also more likely to give back to the com- munity, create more jobs and opportunities, and support other small businesses in the community. Small busi- nesses work hard to keep your trust each and every day, provid- ing unparalleled products and services. All of this helps to strengthen our communities and contributes to our quali- ty of life. On Nov. 26, Small Business Saturday was celebrated across the nation. This movement encourages shoppers to support small businesses after the Thanksgiving holiday. There are no stampedes or trampled shoppers on Small Business Saturday, but friendly faces welcoming local shoppers. When you start to calculate the economic impact that shopping local has, you'll realize just what a bargain it is. There are many tools to shopping local – and even gifts that help support local businesses. In North Central Massachusetts, we recently developed a gift card called Gift Local to encourage shopping local. With nearly 50 businesses participating, consumers are given a choice when deciding on where and how they want to spend their money. We have made it easy for you to shop local, and we hope you take us up on our offer. I'm passionate about shopping local because investing in local business is good for our regional economy. The many business owners in our region who work hard to keep their doors open, create jobs and fill needs in our community deserve our business. Anthony J. Mercadante, CPA, is managing partner of Mercadante & Mercadante, PC, a certified public accounting firm based in Fitchburg. He is the chairman of the board for the North Central Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce. Shop local this holiday season W e've got a new president enter- ing the White House in 2017, and there is no question that a large part of his winning formu- la was in appealing to the mil- lions of American workers who have largely been left behind by a mix of globalization and shifts in the economy. Americans in the top income percentages have seen significant jumps in income while too many have seen wages stagnate and their prospects dim. Nationally, middle-class and blue-collar workers have lost nearly $18,000 in annual household income since 1979 due to the rising wage gap with the upper class, according to Washington, D.C. think tank Economic Policy Institute. How the federal government will go about raising the prospects for those left behind, or at least evening the playing field a little, remains to be seen. But it seems clear that there is political momentum around ending that entrenched wage stagnation. How to do that in a fair and balanced manner is clearly up for debate – and finding a solution that is palatable to both workers and employers may well prove elusive – but we've got to try. Legislation that bites off too big a shift can cause unnecessary disruption for employers, ulti- mately hurting the very workers it aims to help. On the state level, the legislature appears poised to consider further increases in the mini- mum wage, which will produce an interesting debate with much at stake. Massachusetts mini- mum wage is $10 per hour and will increase to $11 per hour as of Jan. 1. Labor activists and the Massachusetts Senate are already talking about increasing this to $15 per hour sometime in the near future. Lieutenant Gov. Karyn Polito already said she isn't opposed to the idea, although she did say it would be better to wait until to see how the change to $11 will impact the economy. Massachusetts House Speaker Robert DeLeo advocated a similar wait-and-see approach. The $11-per-hour change represents the last piece of a three-year, phased-in increase to the minimum wage. As Massachusetts lawmakers head into session next year, we encourage them to begin conversations in earnest about starting another phased-in program that will bring wages up over time to the $15 per hour target. Investments like this keep a strong workforce in the state, but phasing those increases in over sev- eral years gives the business community the chance to adjust and plan. Before a federal judge halted its implementa- tion two days before Thanksgiving, the U.S. Department of Labor and businesses across the nation were preparing for the Dec. 1 change to the overtime exemption law, which would have made salaried employees making less than $47,476 annually eligible for time-and-a-half pay, up from the previous threshold of $23,600. Sure, a change from the $23,600 level was clearly justified, but more that doubling the threshold in one fell swoop – and the level of additional administration required to comply with other elements of the law – were clearly overreaching. However, would the legislation have received as much push back if the minimum were raised by $5,000 a year for four consecutive years? Likely not. The federal executive branch will have to kick this issue over to the legislative level to solve the current legal impasse – per the judge's ruling. The overtime exemption needs raised to a reasonable level that separates the well-compensated, pro- duction-oriented positions from the overworked, glorified hourly positions. Now with a chance to rework a new version of the law, we encourage lawmakers to come up with a plan to prop up the income of many Americans who have not participated sufficiently in the country's economic growth. V I E W P O I N T E D I T O R I A L WO R D F R O M T H E W E B BY ANTHONY J. MERCADANTE Special to the Worcester Business Journal Anthony Mercadante W Comments of the issue "It's about time!" - Anonymous comment on the Nov. 18 story "Legal home-grown marijuana on track for December" Tweets of the week "Inspired by @TutiScott during @ WBJournal Outstanding Women in Business Awards. Proud to support women & my wife as Leaders! @ thisisenvision" - Khamtanh Inthirath (@KInthirath) Nov. 19, at the Outstanding Women in Business Awards event "Shop Small = Big Impact > Shop Local on Saturday @WorcesterWares & Figs & Pigs VIA @WBJournal" - DCU Center (@DCUCenter) Nov. 23, on Small Business Saturday in Worcester W WBJ Local and independent small businesses are also more likely to give back to the community. Facebook feedback "As the question isn't specific to any particular industry other than health care, which is expanding everywhere. Generally speaking: Companies = Jobs. Jobs are always a plus." - Anonymous commenter, Nov. 22, on a poll asking whether readers felt it was positive to have more Boston companies expanding into Central Massachusetts.

• Cover