“Martin O’Malley signed the nation’s first living wage law on Tuesday,” read the Post this morning. Seems a little unfair, seeing as how the District passed its own living wage legislation back in January of 2006, a law which mandated that any firm receiving a District government contract in excess of $100,000 must pay its employees a minimum of $11.75 an hour. The Maryland law is similar; state contractors are required to pay workers $11.30 per hour in metropolitan areas such as Baltimore and D.C. and $8.50 per hour elsewhere. Governor O’Malley also happened to be a member of the Baltimore City Council back in 1994, when the city passed a landmark living wage law.

So what can the state of Maryland expect by way of economic consequences? The answer is probably not all that much. Though economists typically warn against minimum wage measures as being likely to increase unemployment, the rather small increases generally considered by state legislators seem unlikely to do much damage while boosting incomes marginally for some workers. Labor markets in Maryland remain tight, even in Baltimore City and the industrial western portion of the state. Between the Washington area’s growing economic tentacles, Maryland’s increasing prowess as a biotech and biomedical research destination, and military job relocation, hiring doesn’t appear to be a problem.

Which is not the same at all as saying that poverty isn’t a problem. Wage growth aside, it’s clear that the gap between those with college degrees and those without is large and growing in Maryland as elsewhere. Only 35 percent of Maryland’s citizens have college degrees, according to the Census Bureau. The median wage for such workers is more than twice the median of those without a degree. Looking at average wages makes the difference far starker.

Even more significant, housing costs across the state have increased rapidly over the past decade; as the jobs market surrounding the Washington area grows to include Hagerstown, Baltimore, and the Eastern Shore, its housing characteristics expand likewise to include sleepier areas of the state. Maryland’s wage law, like the District’s, is a way to show that the government cares about all workers, but enabling low-income families to actually earn a living in the long run will mean doing less glamorous and more expensive political heavy lifting. It will mean extending affordable, lifelong education to all, pursuing good housing and transportation policies, and tackling sticky issues like the cost of health care. This is a respectable move by O’Malley, but if he wants to have an anti-poverty program with teeth, he’ll have to do much more.

Picture taken by ebreidy.