A coalition in the Monadnock Region is pushing for more local businesses to pay workers at least $15 an hour.
The Monadnock Living Wage Work Group will highlight companies that pledge to pay those wages by the year 2020 at the Healthy Monadnock summit Tuesday in Keene.
Physician Rudy Fedrizzi is director of the Community Health Clinical Integration Center for Population Health, Strategy and Practice at Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene, and a member of the work group.
He says research shows that as wages go up, public health improves as well.
"Given that correlation, we felt it necessary for the community to address efforts to improve the lowest wage earners' health, through enhancing their income potential," Fedrizzi says.
The work group aims to get 50 Monadnock Region companies to commit to paying workers $15 an hour by the end of 2020.