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 upon youth 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 FULL Minimum 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.