Editorial: Ignore the extremists and strike balance on minimum-wage hike
“Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.”
— Dwight D. Eisenhower
Thank you, President Eisenhower, for providing a quote that so eloquently captures the current national debate over increasing the minimum wage. Naysayers seem always to oppose increases, even modest hikes. Proponents, on the other hand, seem oblivious to the potential negative effects of draconian wage increases, which have the potential to harm the very people they’re intended to help.
The federal minimum wage stands at $7.25, a level that’s remained unchanged since 2009, with no adjustments for inflation. Several states recently have passed measures to dramatically increase the minimum wage within their borders:
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• Oregon will see the minimum climb to $14.75 in urban Portland by 2022, and no less than $12.50 in other areas.
• California voters will decide in November whether to support a 50 percent increase in the minimum wage by 2021, from $10 to $15.
• New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week signed legislation raising the state’s minimum wage from $9 an hour to $15, with much of the state seeing that increase by 2021.
More states are looking at similar measures, even as the U.S. Congress demurs. Here in Colorado, the minimum wage is higher than the federal government’s, at $8.23 as of Jan. 1. A group called Colorado Families for a Fair Wage wants to raise it even more, to $12 an hour over the next four years, with annual adjustments thereafter based on inflation or cost of living.
Colorado’s current law has similar annual adjustments, but this new measure sets the bar higher by mandating the new $12 baseline. The ballot measure also eliminates the possibility that the minimum wage will go down, as happened in 2010 with a four-cent reduction in the midst of the Great Recession.
Opponents of the measure warn of massive layoffs as companies shed workers in order to afford the hike. That was also an argument back in 2006, when Colorado voters approved the current law.
Backers of a higher minimum wage in the state must submit at least 98,492 signatures to get one of the measures onto the ballot. Others argue that the $12 figure is too low. Should the measure proceed, we will give it careful consideration, ignoring extremists on both sides.
