Due to a large concentration of seasonal youth employees, a minimum wage increase will disproportionately impact Massachusetts’ Day and Resident camps.
Camping and Youth Employment
While there is much research to support the notion that an increase in the minimum wage will provide, on balance, greater economic benefit than cost to the Commonwealth’s economy, an increase in the minimum wage is not without winners and losers. Much has been written about the large number of minimum wage workers that are employed by large corporations in Massachusetts, and the need for a living wage for adult workers. That cannot be disputed, and the Massachusetts Camping Association supports raising the minimum wage so that adult workers can earn a living wage.
However, there is a considerable body of research that supports the notion that minimum wage increases do have a negative impact uponyouth employment. In Massachusetts, youth (those high school and college-aged) represent only 25% of minimum wage earners. They are generally not responsible for supporting a household, but seek seasonal or part-time employment to supplement their own income while they continue their studies during the school year. For many of these workers, particularly those employed by Massachusetts day and resident camps, their camp position may be their very first employment experience. They come with very few skills, and are in need of extensive job training before commencing with a short season of work.
Camping is both a recreational and an educational activity. Campers learn skills and attitudes that will serve them over their lifetimes—cooperation, leadership, creativity, collaborative problem solving, perseverance, grit—to name but a few. At the same time, the vast majority of seasonal workers employed at camps are themselves young men and women just beginning their adult lives. These employees gain invaluable experience in 21st century skills like critical thinking and problem-solving, innovation, team building, leadership, communication and responsibility.
Youth unemployment is now over forty percent in inner cities, and over eighteen percent overall. The “wage scar” created by youth unemployment can last into middle age, hindering future earning potential. In a world where youth unemployment is a growing problem and employers increasingly seek workers with the 21st century skills acquired in seasonal camp jobs, the workforce development impact of the camping industry is extraordinarily important.
A FULL Minimum Wage Exemption is needed in order for Massachusetts camps to continue in their work of educating children in these critical skill areas and providing essential job training to young workers.
Current Status
Massachusetts camps currently employ over 1,300 full time workers and 23,000 seasonal employees, most of whom are in high school or in their early college years. Rather than devote millions of dollars in direct subsidies for youth summer employment and workforce development programs targeted at younger workers, the General Court has the opportunity to support a market-based solution to providing the job training and addressing the 21st Century Skill deficits that define our emerging workforce.
While camps support raising the minimum wage so that adult workers can earn a living wage, the current minimum wage level paid by camps in Massachusetts makes it virtually impossible to provide camp experiences which are affordable for middle and working class families, as labor cost is the largest single component of summer camp tuition. Camps are struggling under the existing burden of the current minimum wage level, and the cost of labor become unsustainable for summer camps in MA once the minimum wage is further increased.
Section 13(a)(3) of the US Fair Labor Standards Act provides a FULL exemption from the minimum wage and overtime provisions of the FLSA for all summer camp staff who are employed on a seasonal basis. The vast majority of states, including all Northeast states, mirror this important exemption. Massachusetts does not.
The Federal government, through this minimum wage exemption, has recognized the essential and formative education and workforce development training that is gained by staff at day and resident camps throughout the country. The invaluable nature of this job training for young workers has driven most states to mirror this exemption.
The current Massachusetts law permitting a 20% reduction in the minimum wage level for all hours worked by camp staff, with minimal allowances for room and board, and required staffing ratios of as few as 1 to 5, result in labor costs that are 50% to 100% higher for Massachusetts’ day and resident camps than any other state in the Northeast.
By failing to provide an exemption from Massachusetts minimum wage requirements to the Commonwealth’s seasonal day and resident camps, the Massachusetts General Court has created a trying economic situation for our state’s summer camps, which will become unsustainable when the wage levels rise, as they must.
Request
A FULLMinimum Wage Exemption for youth camp workers would allow Massachusetts camps to provide even greater training to a larger number of young and emerging members of the workforce. It would allow camps to help these workers to attain the 21st century skills they will need to join the highly skilled workforce that is driving Massachusetts’ economic engine, by providing workers that can fill the existing skills gap.
Employers nationwide report a huge deficit in the number of workers equipped with such skills, and anticipate that even more workers will be needed in the future with this critical skill set. Massachusetts’ summer camps can provide a solution to this vexing challenge, but they need to work on a level playing field with summer camps located in virtually every other part of this country. They need a minimum wage exemption in MA.