Four States Approve Minimum Wage Increases

Voters in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and Washington approved ballot initiatives to increase their state minimum wage rate.

November 10, 2016

WASHINGTON – On Election Day, Arizona, Colorado and Maine voters approved measures that will phase in a $12 minimum wage rate by 2020, reports The Washington Post; and in Washington state, where the current minimum wage is $9.47 an hour, voters approved increasing the hourly rate to $13.50 by 2020.

In addition to a higher minimum wage rate, the measures in Arizona and Colorado will require employers to provide employees with paid sick days.

Prior to Tuesday, each of the four states already had a minimum wage rate above the federal $7.25 per hour, which hasn’t changed since 2009.

The Wall Street Journal reports that voter support for higher minimum wage rates in the four states reflect the influence of labor unions and out-of-state supporters, according to Michael Saltsman, research director at the Employment Policies Institute.

“Big-labor interests continue to sacrifice local entry-level labor markets to advance their activist agenda,” Saltsman told the WSJ. “On the bright side, it appears that principled opposition to wage hikes was not the political burden that proponents had hoped it would be.”

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