Ethan Strimling served ten years as Portland’s mayor and state Senator and is a member of Democratic Socialists of America for a Livable Portland.

It is often said that a rising tide lifts all boats. In fact, these words were on a sign in my office when I was mayor of this great city, reminding me every day of the kind of policies I needed to fight for.

For many of us now working to pass Question A, which will ensure no worker in Portland earns less than $19 an hour by 2028, this is one such tide.

Our current minimum wage leaves thousands of Portland workers with barely enough money to afford rent. In fact, almost 10,000 workers — including restaurant servers and dishwashers, child care providers, the cashier at your local Hannaford, the health care assistant at Maine Med, the bagger at Whole Foods (owned by one of the richest people in the world) — are all currently making less than $19 an hour.

These are our neighbors, parents, grandparents, recent graduates from Portland and Deering, the people who serve all of us every day. More than 5,500 of these workers are women. Almost 2,000 are 55 and older, and 1,500 are Black, Hispanic, American Indian or Asian.

Some of the hardest working people in this city are earning the least.

By passing Question A and ensuring workers bring home a few hundred more dollars a month, it not only helps them, it strengthens our economy overall.

Study after study shows us that low-income workers spend their money locally. They use the extra money to buy groceries, get clothes for their kids, pay their landlord, and, perhaps, buy the occasional cup of coffee from the place they work.

When more workers in Portland are able to afford to live here, our whole city will be more stable.

Let’s put to rest the argument that raising our wage to $19 will cost us jobs. Portland City Council designed this initiative to ensure the wage grows slowly enough to allow businesses time to adjust. Additionally, the council set the wage at 60% of the median wage for Portland, which will be $31.60 in 2028.

That 60% figure is the sweet spot, where wages are maximized for workers without slowing job growth for businesses. In fact, the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, the leading pro-business voice in Maine, said to the Legislature in 2016, “… if minimum wages are raised to no more than 60% of median wages, the net economic benefit is largely positive to both workers and business owners.”

There is a reason Question A is being supported by people like Sen. Rachel Talbot Ross, Majority Leader Matt Moonen and Reps. Grayson Lookner and Sam Zager. It’s supported by a majority of Portland City Council, including the sponsors, Regina Phillips and Kate Sykes, and councilors Wes Pelletier and April Fournier. It’s supported by groups who support workers like IBEW, the Maine People’s Alliance, the Southern Maine Labor Council, Maine DSA and the Portland Democratic City Committee.

It’s supported because what makes our city great is our workers, and we should treat them with the respect they deserve.

Keeping Portland livable for all of us, especially those on the margins, has always been my focus — whether as an elected official, as the director of LearningWorks, or now as an activist with Maine DSA. I hope you will join me in voting to raise the economic tide for workers by voting Yes on Question A to raise Portland’s minimum wage to $19 an hour.