In case you’re buckled up for 2020, it’s possible you’ll need to put down your cellphone, too.
Massachusetts’s new distracted driving legislation takes impact subsequent month, outlawing using hand-held telephones whereas behind the wheel — simply one in every of a number of items of laws scheduled to take maintain within the new yr.
What else is in retailer?
The hourly minimal wage is leaping up 75 cents; menthol cigarette gross sales will face sweeping restrictions come June; and a university financial savings program providing $50 for every child born or adopted after Jan. 1 are additionally among the many adjustments in 2020.
Right here’s what to anticipate from these new legal guidelines, and others launching this yr:
The minimal wage will increase on the right track to $15 per hour, whereas Sunday pay decreases
As of Jan. 1, the state’s minimal wage increased from $12 to $12.75 an hour — the most recent enhance as Massachusetts strikes nearer to a $15 minimal wage by 2023.
Hourly employees can anticipate to see a gradual, 75-cent enhance each new yr over the following three years.
In the meantime, tipped minimal wage workers noticed a rise this month from $four.35 to $four.95 an hour. By 2023, that quantity shall be $6.75.
Nevertheless, on account of the so-called “grand bargain” bill handed in 2018, the state’s time-and-a-half cost necessities for retail workers who work on Sundays and sure holidays is being phased out within the coming years.
This yr, the speed was diminished to 1.three instances the hourly fee, down from 1.four final yr.
In February, hands-free driving joins the foundations of the highway
On Feb. 23, a hands-free driving law passed in November takes impact, permitting police to penalize drivers caught on their cellphones.
Motorists, and cyclists too, shall be resigned to utilizing their telephones and digital units solely in sure modes — reminiscent of by way of Bluetooth or related options — that enable them to maintain their palms on the wheel and eyes on the highway.
There are a number of exceptions, nonetheless.
Drivers shall be allowed to make use of telephones if their car is stationary and never inside a journey lane; individuals in emergency conditions can use their palms to talk on the cellphone; and motorists can nonetheless use their telephones for navigation functions, so long as the system is mounted to the dashboard, windshield, or heart console in a approach that “doesn’t impede the operation of the motorized vehicle.”
First-time offenders face a $100 advantageous, with $250 and $500 fines for subsequent offenses. Whereas the legislation takes maintain subsequent month, police will challenge solely warnings till March 31 to provide drivers time to get used to the ban.
New restrictions will restrict menthol cigarette gross sales come June
Below a bill signed into law in November, flavored tobacco merchandise, together with chewing tobacco and menthol cigarettes, will solely be allowed for buy at smoking bars the place they have to be used on-site.
The brand new restrictions, which take maintain June 1, comply with related laws that took impact for flavored nicotine vaping merchandise late final yr.
Kids born to or adopted by Mass. residents beginning in 2020 shall be eligible for an training financial savings program
Kids born to or adopted by Massachusetts mother and father or authorized guardians, beginning Jan. 1, are eligible to have $50 positioned inside a 529 faculty financial savings account by way of a program overseen by state Treasurer Deborah Goldberg’s workplace.
The BabySteps Savings Plan, established in 2018, is funded by way of non-public donations and goals to encourage households to plan and save for greater training bills as early as potential.
“Entry to greater training is significant to the well being of the Massachusetts economic system,” Goldberg mentioned in a statement asserting this system in 2018. “With the worth of training rising every year, we should be certain that people of each background and earnings degree are outfitted with the assets to finance their greater training and enter the workforce debt-free.”
Households have to enroll their youngsters inside a yr after a baby is born or adopted, officials said.
Automated voter registration has launched simply in time for the presidential primaries
As of Jan. 1, potential voters will now be mechanically registered ought to they apply for or renew their driver’s license or ID card on the Registry of Motor Autos or join state medical insurance.
The change, which was accepted beneath a invoice signed into legislation again in 2018, means eligible voters will now not want to finish a separate kind or be required to specify they want to register, in keeping with the Secretary of State William Galvin’s workplace. Additionally they have the precise to decide out of registering.
The transfer comes simply in time for the March three presidential primaries, however there’s an necessary caveat: Voters trying to solid a poll within the primaries have to be registered by the Feb. 12 deadline.
The state earnings tax dropped, only a bit
The Massachusetts state earnings tax is now 5 p.c, down from 5.05 p.c in 2019.
The drop comes 20 years after voters signed off on a ballot measure to decrease the tax fee to five p.c, marking the tip of the gradual lower.
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