Ohio's minimum wage going up 80 cents

SANDUSKY — Ohio's minimum wage will go up in 2023 by 80 cents from $9.30 to $10.10 an hour. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, but many states, such as Ohio, have state minimum wages. This would include two of Ohio's neighbors: Michigan and West Virginia. Ohio voters raised the state minimum wage in 2006 in a ballot issue and indexed it for inflation. Because of the current high inflation in the U.S., next year's hike in Ohio is the biggest so far. It goes into effect this Sunday, Jan. 1. According to Policy Matters Ohio, a left-leaning think tank, the minimum wage increase in Ohio is likely to affect about 470,000 Ohioans. Policy Matters, citing a study from the Economic Policy Institute, says that about 188,000 Ohioans who earn less than $10.10 an hour will directly get a pay increase. Another 278,000 who currently get a little more than $10.10 an hour will likely get a pay boost as employers adjust their pay scales, the institute reports. Ohio had 5.5 million workers who receive wages or salaries that don't work on farms, according to a news release issued earlier this month by the Department of Job and Family Services. So the people directly benefiting from the wage hike represent about 4% of Ohio workers, while the total number likely to be affected, according to the institute, is about 8%. Many employers in Ohio, including fast food restaurants, already have raised wages in an attempt to find workers. No one was available to comment this week from the Bureau of Labor Market Information in the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. The Register also reached out unsuccessfully for comment from an economist at Bowling Green State University, which has shut down for the holidays. Policy Matters Ohio issued a statement from one of its researchers, Michael Shields, who said passage of the state minimum wage hike illustrates the power of ballot issues in Ohio. Republicans in the Ohio House, including state Rep. D.J. Swearingen, R-Huron, have advanced a bill to put an issue on the ballot that would require 60% of the voters to approve a state question amending the state constitution. The measure failed to advance to final passage before the most recent legislative session ended this month and is expected to be taken up again next year. "In 2006, Ohioans came together and voted to increase the minimum wage," Shields said. "In their wisdom, they indexed the wage to inflation, so it won't lose value over time. While those new pay scales won't push up workers' buying power, they serve as a vital safeguard against inflation, which hit a 40-year high this year." He continued: "Without a similar index, the nation's minimum wage has lost nearly half its peak value. The vital wage adjustment is a direct result of Ohioans exercising their right to bring important issues to the ballot. It underscores the need to defend voter access to direct democracy against hostile legislative attacks like now stalled House Joint Resolution 6." The federal minimum wage was last raised in 2007. The current $7.25 per hour federal minimum wage went into effect in 2009, the U.S. Department of Labor states. In states where there are both federal and state minimum wages, such as Ohio, employers are required to pay the higher of the two minimum wages. According to a January 2021 article by Chris Edwards posted at the website of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, 29 states have minimum wages higher than the federal minimum wage, and so do dozens of cities and counties. The highest state minimum wage at the time of Edwards' article was the $13.69 an hour state minimum in the state of Washington. President Joe Biden has proposed raising the federal minimum wage, in stages, to $15 an hour. Edwards' piece argues that a large minimum wage hike would hurt small businesses. "Almost half of minimum wage workers are employed at businesses with fewer than 100 employees," Edwards wrote.