by Christine Vestal, Stateline.org
Voters in a record number of states will decide Nov. 7 whether to hike the minimum wage, continuing an unprecedented two-year trend of state action on an issue that remains bottled up in Congress.
Democratic organizers in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Ohio succeeded in certifying ballot initiatives that would require employers to pay more than the $5.15-an-hour floor Congress approved in 1996 – and has since refused to raise.
Already this year, lawmakers in 11 states — Arkansas, California, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia — have enacted new statutes boosting their minimum-wage rates. Of that number, six for the first time increased wages above the federal rate, bringing to 23 the number of states whose lowest-paid workers will make more than the federal minimum.
The number of wage initiatives on the ballot this year surpasses the high-water mark in 1996, when four states voted on wage proposals, said Jenny Bowser of the National Conference of State Legislatures. In the past 10 years, eight minimum wage measures have gone before voters, and only two failed, she said.
With 30 minimum-wage bills considered and 11 enacted this year, legislative activity also hit a 10-year high, she said.
In the past two years, more states have raised their minimum-wage rates than in the 68-year-history of the federal minimum wage law. The watershed was the 2004 election, when voters in Florida and Nevada overwhelmingly approved wage hikes while also voting for Republican President George W. Bush. Politicians realized the issue was a “winner,” said Bernie Horn of the Center for Policy Alternatives, a progressive advocacy group focusing on state policy.
Political analysts on both sides of the issue agree that recent fervor for the issue is as much related to politics as it is to policy. National polls show broad bipartisan support among Americans for minimum-wage increases. But in the political arena, support for the issue is still largely split along party lines.
Read the full report and explore stateline.org’s interactive minimum-wage feature
