California voters rejected a ballot measure that would have raised the minimum wage to the highest in the country.
Proposition 32 was rejected by a slim margin, with 50.8% opposing and 49.2% supporting, with 100% of precincts reporting, according to the unofficial tally and the Associated Press. The measure would have raised the minimum wage to $18 an hour by 2026, the highest in the country.
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Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech last week to accompany the release of her 82-page economic planning document. While her words were intended to evoke optimism, the implications of the plan are troubling for America’s future.
To begin with, the plan must be placed in context.
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Seattle employees making the minimum wage will see a mandatory raise starting next year, making them the highest paid minimum wage workers in the country.
Starting at the beginning of 2025, all employers regardless of size will be required to pay their employees at least $20.76 an hour.
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A new report put out by the Arizona Common Sense Institute has found that allowing employers to pay tipped workers 25% less than the state minimum wage could actually help secure jobs for employees in the restaurant and service industries.
The report is an analysis of Proposition 138, an amendment that would allow for tipped workers to be paid 25% less per hour than the minimum wage if any tips received by the employee were not less than the minimum wage plus $2 for all hours worked. Arizona voters will decide the measure’s fate in the upcoming general election.
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Glendale residents will have the opportunity to decide whether or not to raise minimum wage and benefits for hotel and event workers this November. The Hotel and Event Center Minimum Wage Protection Act, proposed and funded by the Worker Political Action Committee, will be on the ballot this year and while it seems to stem from good intentions, a report from the Common Sense Institute of Arizona says it could have detrimental economic impacts.
The initiative not only states that hotel and event centers workers must earn a minimum of $20 per hour, but it would also set a limitation on the amount of square feet a room attendant is required to clean before the employer must pay twice the hourly wage, it would require employers to distribute service charges to the employees who performed those services and lastly, the city of Glendale would be required to enforce these rules.
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A ballot initiative to have tipped service workers get paid the same minimum wage and bump the minimum wage to $18 an hour has been scrapped.
The group, known as “Raise the Wage AZ,” is pulling the signatures they submitted to the Arizona Secretary of State’s office, as the petition was challenged by the Arizona Restaurant Association over the number of signatures obtained.
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The American job market has significantly downshifted as consumers, who drive the economy, are tapped out from the ongoing cost-of-living crisis under the Biden-Harris administration.
According to Friday’s employment report, only 115,000 jobs were created in July (67,000 using the more accurate household survey).
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An economic public policy group believes a minimum wage increase would save thousands of lives across the state.
Columbus-based Scioto Analysis recently released a new cost-benefit analysis of the impact of raising the minimum wage. The analysis says raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour would save about 4,100 lives over the next decade.
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The King County Council has approved an ordinance that will increase the minimum wage in unincorporated parts of King County.
The legislation increases minimum wage to a high of $20.29, which ties the cities of Tukwila and Renton for the highest minimum wage in the nation.
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If a push to increase Ohio’s minimum wage fails to make the November ballot, there’s a backup plan in the state Senate.
That plan, though, moves increases more slowly and eventually keeps the tipped wage at half of the non-tipped wage. If the proposed constitutional amendment reaches the ballot and is passed, the tipped- and non-tipped wage would eventually become equal.
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A year after language was approved for a constitutional amendment to raise the minimum wage in Ohio, organizers are still collecting signatures to get the issue on the ballot.
A coalition, Raise the Wage Ohio, received approval for the proposed amendment nearly a year ago from the Ohio Ballot Board and has been collecting the more than 413,000 signatures since.
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All fast-food employees, regardless of age, will see a $20 an hour minimum wage in California, while the federal minimum wage is between $4.25 and $7.25, depending on age and length of time working.
California fast-food chains are laying off workers, raising prices and deciding against opening new stores as the state implements a minimum wage that is more than 175 percent higher than that required by the federal government.
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Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed bills Thursday that would have raised Virginia’s minimum wage to $13.50 per hour in 2025 and $15 in 2026.
The companion bills were among the first to be prefiled by General Assembly Democrats, indicating their status as high-priority legislation.
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Minimum wage hikes in many states around the country and sky-high inflation are crushing independent restaurants that don’t want to raise prices on their customers, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In January, 22 states raised their minimum wage for hourly workers, according to the WSJ. Around 59 percent of small business owners said that higher labor costs were the biggest source of inflation in January, requiring price hikes to maintain current revenue levels.
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Democrats in the Virginia General Assembly narrowly passed legislation that will raise the commonwealth’s minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2026. Their votes came despite Governor Glenn Youngkin previously suggesting such legislation was unnecessary.
HB 1 previously passed the Virginia House of Delegates on February 2 in a partisan vote with 51 in favor and 49 against. In the Virginia Senate, the bill’s counterpart, SB 1, also passed along partisan lines, with 21 votes in favor and 19 votes against.
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Beginning April 1, the minimum wage for employees working in California’s fast food chains and health care industries will rise to $20 per hour and, in some cases, up to $23 per hour. Many employers managing independent restaurants, retail, and other industries will have to match the higher hourly rate to retain employees. And for hourly employees whose wages are indexed to the minimum wage, mostly in California’s unionized public sector, wages will rise proportionately.
There is no national consensus on the impact of minimum-wage laws. It is part of a much larger debate over what constitutes an optimal economic environment to enable, quoting from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “economic security and independence.”
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California Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed into law a measure that will require most fast-food workers to be paid a minimum $20 an hour.
The minimum-wage law is set to go into effect next year.
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Wages will rise for hundreds of thousands of low-skilled workers in Connecticut next year under a 2019 law that pegs the state’s minimum wage to the federal employment index.
Beginning Jan. 1, Connecticut’s wage floor will rise from $15.00 per hour to $15.69 per hour as a result of the state’s first-ever economic indicator adjustment.
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Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey vetoed an ordinance passed by the city council to enact a minimum compensation of $1.40 per mile and $0.51 per minute while transporting a rider, subject to annual adjustment.
Instead, Frey struck a deal to boost Uber driver pay to the city minimum wage and guarantee at least $5 per ride.
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Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives this week passed legislation raising the state minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2026 and permanently indexing it to inflation going forward.
Currently, the Keystone State mandates $7.25 in minimum hourly pay for most workers. If the bill passes the state Senate it will receive the supportive Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro’s signature and become law. The measure, sponsored by Representative Jason Dawkins (D-Philadelphia) will move the low-end wage to $11 per hour next January and $13 per hour the following January before bringing it to $15 the year after that.
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As Democrats proceeded with Pennsylvania minimum wage hike legislation on Wednesday, Republican state representatives tried and failed to amend the measure to mitigate job losses.
The bill supported by the Democrats’ one-seat House of Representatives majority would increase the Keystone State’s minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $15 per hour by 2026. The wage floor would thenceforth permanently rise according to inflation.
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Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will hold a rally in Nashville this week with Tennessee State Representative Justin Jones (D-Nashville).
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A new bill to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour is emerging in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.
Sponsored by Representative Patty Kim (D-Harrisburg), the bill as described in a memorandum appears similar to legislation Senator Dan Laughlin (R-Erie) is spearheading in his chamber. It contrasts with a more radical measure authored by Representative Chris Rabb (D-Philadelphia) that would hike the wage floor to $16.50 in July 2025 and gradually increase it to $21 by mid-2028. The Rabb bill would also apply the state minimum wage to prisoners, vastly boosting their pay.
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A Pennsylvania state correctional-facility inmate can expect to earn between $0.23 and $0.50 per hour at his prison job — not counting free room and board. Sixteen Pennsylvania House Democrats now want the state government that feeds and shelters these prisoners to pay them $21 an hour for their work.
Led by Representative Chris Rabb (D-Philadelphia), these lawmakers are spearheading legislation to dramatically increase the state minimum wage and apply the new rate to prisoners.
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Pennsylvania’s state Senate Republican Policy chair on Friday said he’s sponsoring legislation gradually raising the commonwealth’s minimum hourly wage to $15 and thence indexing it to inflation.
Senator Dan Laughlin (R-Erie), one of his chamber’s most moderate Republicans representing one of its most electorally competitive districts, said in a statement that he carefully mulled the issue before announcing his measure. The Keystone State’s pay floor rose to $7.25 per hour in 2008, matching the federal minimum wage, and the senator insisted now is the time for an increase, observing that 30 states now set their floors higher.
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Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry (L&I) officials testified before state senators Tuesday, requesting an increase in the department’s budget as well as a hike in the commonwealth’s minimum wage.
Governor Josh Shapiro’s Fiscal Year 2023-24 spending proposal envisions an 11.4-percent rise in L&I’s allocation to $89.8 million. The agency’s acting secretary Nancy Walker also asked lawmakers to consider backing the governor’s goal to raise the Keystone State’s legal wage floor to $15 per hour.
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Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro asked the state General Assembly members on Tuesday to support his requested $45.9 billion budget, which would increase spending by approximately 4 percent over current outlays.
The governor insisted he based his plan for Fiscal Year 2023-24 on “conservative” revenue estimates. And he did include some provisions appealing to anti-taxers and free-marketers including nixing the state cell-phone tax, a move he estimates would save Pennsylvanians $124 million annually.
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The nonprofit Institute for Reforming Government (IRG) on Friday issued a comprehensive analysis of Democratic Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers’s 2023-25 state budget and bemoaned the proposal’s likely impact on job creators and the middle class.
Evers’s spending plan totals $104 billion, $16 billion more than the budget on which the Badger State now operates. If enacted, the new proposal would be the first state budget exceeding $100 billion. It includes massive spending increases in such areas as public education, childcare assistance, “affordable housing” and broadband expansion. Republican lawmakers, who object to the extent of the spending hikes and the governor’s refusal to devote more of the state’s $7.1 billion surplus to tax cuts, promised last week to thoroughly rewrite the plan.
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A Washington legislator who served time behind bars contends it is time for the state to stop saving millions on the backs of inmates who are paid pennies for work in prison jobs.
“This is an evolution of slavery,” Rep. Tarra Simmons, D-Bremerton, told reporters. She is proposing that inmates be paid minimum wage when they work in the kitchen or produce furniture or other goods.
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Four states will have a $15-an-hour minimum wage by New Year’s Day, while 27 states are poised to raise the minimum wage in 2023.
Some states are enacting the wage change after Jan. 1, so by the end of 2023 there will be six states that are set to have minimum wages at or above $15 an hour. They are California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, and Washington, according to a report last week from the National Employment Law Project.
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Michigan’s current $9.87 per hour full minimum wage will increase to $10.10 on Jan. 1.
Another increase could transpire in the coming year as well, depending on a determination by the Michigan Court of Appeals.
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Virginia’s minimum wage is set to increase from $11 to $12 per hour Jan. 1, a rise that comes after an attempt by Republican lawmakers to halt the minimum wage increase failed earlier this year.
The increase comes as a result of 2020 law that outlined incremental wage increases starting in 2021. The law specified that employers must pay $12 an hour starting Jan. 1 and paves the way for $15 an hour in future years, but that’s dependent on future action by the General Assembly.
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Supporters of a higher minimum wage in Ohio haven’t waited long to move forward with a proposed constitutional amendment that was rejected two weeks ago.
The group pushing to put the question before voters must clear the Ohio Ballot Board, which will decide if it contains just a single constitutional amendment or multiple amendments. The board will meet Nov. 7 to consider the proposal, according to Secretary of State Frank LaRose.
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Amid historic inflation that has eaten away at Americans’ paychecks, the mayor of Shelby County is calling for Tennessee’s General Assembly to pass a law increasing the minimum wage.
“Today, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris released his administration’s recommendations for the upcoming session of the Tennessee General Assembly,” said a release from Harris’s office. “Mayor Harris’ priorities center around legislative actions that support youth and families, increase public safety, improve access to healthcare, and strengthen our democracy. One of Mayor Harris’ top legislative priorities is the adoption of a state-wide minimum wage of at least $15.”
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A citizen group trying to use a constitutional amendment to raise Ohio’s minimum wage eventually to $15 doesn’t need to start over but it does need to make changes to its plan if it hopes to eventually get it on the ballot.
Attorney General Dave Yost rejected the group’s proposal, calling it misleading to a potential signer. He also said it had numerous omissions.
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Two liberal Pennsylvania lawmakers on Friday proposed a law to force all landlords to accept housing vouchers.
In a memorandum describing their legislation, state Senators Katie Muth (D-Royersford) and Carolyn Comitta (D-West Chester) insisted that America’s current “public housing crisis” demands such a measure. They cited data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition indicating that a Pennsylvanian earning the state’s minimum wage of $7.25 per hour in 2022 would need to work 94 hours weekly to pay for a one-bedroom rental or 115 hours to afford a two-bedroom apartment. A resident working 40 hours a week would, they asserted, need to earn $20.90 hourly (almost three times the state minimum wage) to pay for a typical two-bedroom apartment.
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Democratic legislators in California passed a bill on Monday that will create an unelected state-run board to impose minimum wage and working conditions standards on the state’s fast food restaurants.
The bill, known as A.B. 257, will establish a ten-member council, made up of state officials as well as worker and employer representatives, to set employees’ wages, hours and working conditions for California’s entire fast food industry. The bill stipulates that the council has the authority to issue health, safety and anti-discrimination regulations as well as set an industrywide minimum wage of up to $22 per hour, according to the bill’s text.
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Some Michigan businesses are scrambling after a Court of Claims ruling says the minimum wage should increase from $9.87 to $12 after the Court declared the GOP’s 2018 circumvention of two voter-initiated ballot initiatives as unconstitutional.
A restaurant group estimates this change would hike labor cost inflation by 156%.
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Employees in Connecticut are now earning a minimum wage of $14, and one industry expert says the wage isn’t enough to support a family.
Connecticut increased its minimum wage on July 1 for the fourth time since 2019. Fred Carstensen, director of the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis at the University of Connecticut, said many of the jobs available are lower-wage jobs that don’t offer benefits such as health care.
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Connecticut is set to raise its minimum wage from $13.00 per hour to $14.00 per hour in compliance with a law passed by the state’s leaders in 2019.
The legislation implemented a plan to raise the state’s minimum wage from $10.10 in 2019 to $15 over the span of five years.
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The minimum wage is a sort of litmus test. And not only for economists. For social justice advocates, too.
Forget, for a moment, the economics of it. In essence, minimum wage legislation imposes compulsory unemployment on the poor, the unskilled, racial minorities, the young, the physically and even more so the mentally handicapped—the very people all men of good will most want to help. Before the advent of this law, the unemployment rate for white middle-aged people and black teens was just about the same. Now, the latter are unemployed at quadruple the rate of the former.
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A federal appeals court on Thursday halted a mandate from the Biden administration that required an hourly minimum wage of $15 for outdoor recreation companies operating on public land.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver granted an injunction in a lawsuit filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation against the Biden administration on behalf of outdoor recreational groups that have contracts with the U.S. government or operate on federal land.
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration again Thursday, this time for requiring federal contractors to pay a $15 an hour minimum wage. It’s the 21st lawsuit the attorney general has filed against the administration. Joining him are the attorneys general from Louisiana and Mississippi.
“The president has no authority to overrule Congress, which has sole authority to set the minimum wage and which already rejected a minimum wage increase,” Paxton argues.
Their lawsuit follows one filed last December by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of outdoor adventure guides, Arkansas Valley Adventures (AVA), a licensed river outfitter regulated by the Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife, and the Colorado River Outfitters Association (CROA). The CROA, a nonprofit trade association, represents more than 150 independent operators who primarily conduct business on federal lands using special use permits through Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management.
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RICHMOND, Virginia – The Republican-controlled House of Delegates passed two bills addressing the minimum wage, including a repeal of increases passed by Democrats in previous sessions. Delegate Nick Freitas (R-Culpeper) and Delegate Sally Hudson (D-Charlottesville) debated about the need for minimum wage increases on the House floor Monday.
“I have it on good theological guidance that nothing in this bill is going to cause you to be cast into eternal darkness and gnashing of teeth,” Freitas said, defending his HB 320 against a claim that eliminating minimum wage increases harms “the least among us,” a reference to Jesus’ teaching in the Bible.
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Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf is again urging the Republican-controlled General Assembly to increase the commonwealth’s minimum wage, claiming anything under $15 an hour isn’t enough to support a family.
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HENRICO, Virginia – Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin met with the Asian Chamber of Commerce for a round table with Senator Siobhan Dunnavant (R-Henrico) and Delegate Rodney Willett (D-Henrico). Youngkin told those in attendance that he planned to bring 400,000 new jobs and 10,000 new startups to Virginia.
“So, in order to do that, we in fact recognize that we have to put a lot of the ingredients together, just like we’re cooking a meal,” Youngkin said. “And one of those ingredients is, in fact, the recognition that there are some inhibitions in starting small businesses. So one of the things I want to hear from you are the challenges that you all feel and hear when you start your businesses.”
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A county judge says Arizona cannot extract the additional cost of doing state business in a city that increased its minimum wage, making it more expensive to operate there.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge James Smith sided with the city of Flagstaff about whether a provision in the 2019 Arizona budget allowed the state to fine the city for the difference in doing state business at a higher minimum wage compared with the state minimum hourly rate.
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A group of Democrats is pushing for the creation of a Civilian Climate Corps that could employ “millions” of young people at a minimum of $15 per hour as a way to tackle climate change.
“I was proud to stand alongside Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez this year as we reintroduced the Green New Deal and also brought forward our new Civilian Conservation Corps because that legislation is a pathway to new jobs in our country, union jobs for young people,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said during a news conference focused on including the Civilian Climate Corps in the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation bill the Democrats are drafting.
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Opponents of minimum wage laws tend to focus their criticism on one particular adverse consequence: by artificially raising the price of labor, they reduce employment, particularly for the most vulnerable in society.
“Minimum wage laws tragically generate unemployment, especially so among the poorest and least skilled or educated workers,” economist Murray Rothbard wrote in 1978. “Because a minimum wage, of course, does not guarantee any worker’s employment; it only prohibits, by force of law, anyone from being hired at the wage which would pay his employer to hire him.
Though some economists, such as Paul Krugman, reject Rothbard’s claim, a recent study found the overwhelming body of academic research supports the idea that minimum wage laws increase unemployment.
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If Joe Biden gets his way, the federal minimum wage will soon more than double, from the current $7.25 to $15 per hour. To quote our commander in chief, “if you work for less than $15 an hour and work 40 hours a week, you’re living in poverty.”
To rehash the minimum wage debate would be redundant. Anyone with business experience should see what’s going to happen. Many small independent businesses, retail stores, and restaurants that pay minimum wage will go under.
Meanwhile, major corporate chains will automate, shedding workers and raising prices, consolidating their grip on every market sector where they’re active. Unionized government workers will automatically get raises because their wages are indexed to the minimum wage—putting even more pressure on government budgets and taxpayers. People in the private sector who have spent decades learning a skill—and as a result can command wages upwards of $25 or $30 an hour—will become justifiably disgruntled, because they will no longer be making much more than minimum wage. The underground economy will explode.
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