The 2024 elections include a raft of ballot measures across every state. Voters will be asked to mark their preference on controversial topics such as abortion, school choice, the legalization of drugs, and much more. This Washington Examiner series, Direct Democracy, will take a forensic look at several of these items. Part One was on the abortion measures in 10 states. Part Two is about minimum wage measures in four states.
Voters in four states will decide on whether to raise the minimum wage, votes that come after four years of historic inflation and economic discontent.
Alaska, California, Massachusetts, and Missouri all have ballot initiatives that would raise minimum wages for workers. The Massachusetts measure is unique in that it would gradually increase the minimum wage for tipped workers to parity with the state’s normal minimum wage.
Minimum wage proposals are overwhelmingly popular and typically pass, even in Republican states. The federal minimum wage is $7.25, the same amount it has been since 2009. State minimum wages supersede the federal minimum wage, so if a state’s minimum wage is higher than the federal, that state wage applies.
The ballot initiatives
Alaska
Voters in the Last Frontier will decide on Ballot Measure 1, which would incrementally raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2027. The state’s current minimum wage is $11.73.
The measure would also make it so that workers at companies with more than 15 employees can accrue up to 56 hours of paid sick leave per year and 40 hours of paid sick leave for companies with fewer than 15 employees.
It would also prohibit employers from making their employees attend meetings about religious or political issues.
The Yes on 1 campaign has raised about $2.6 million in the effort to get the measure passed. The biggest financial backer of the campaign is the Fairness Project, which is based in Washington, D.C., and works to raise wages across the country. The Fairness Project receives funding from labor unions. The Alaska AFL-CIO is the state’s largest union group and has endorsed the ballot measure.
There has been very minimal funding in opposition to Ballot Measure 1.
California
Californians will vote on whether to hike their minimum wage to $18 per hour with Proposition 32. The Golden State’s minimum wage is already about double the federal minimum wage, at $15.
Like the other ballot initiatives, the wage increase would be phased in over time, and the $18 minimum would only fully apply by 2026. The phase-in would be more gradual for businesses with fewer than 26 employees.
The California measure has a provision that would then index the state’s minimum wage to inflation, specifically the consumer price index. That part of the proposal means that if there were to be another bout of massive inflation like the country experienced over the past four years, wages would then rise alongside it.
Anti-poverty advocate and startup investor Joe Sanberg dumped $10 million of his own money into getting the measure on the ballot, according to CalMatters. The proposition is also supported by some labor unions in California, including Unite Here local 11 and Service Employees International Union.
The Chamber of Commerce, Restaurant Association, and Grocers Association have been spending opposing Proposition 32. Opponents argue that hiking the minimum wage will only contribute to raising prices for consumers and would hurt small businesses.
One recent ad cut by the California Chamber of Commerce shows two women talking while shopping at a grocery store.
“The cost of putting food on the table is crazy,” says one woman. “The thing is, it’s about to get worse. Prop 32 is going to raise the prices of everything.”
“I can’t take it anymore,” the other woman replies.
While the overwhelming majority of ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage pass in even very red states, recent polling indicates that support for Proposition 32 is flagging.
The most recent polling by the Public Policy Institute of California finds support for raising the minimum wage at 44%, with 54% of those surveyed indicating they would vote against the measure. In September, 50% of those surveyed said they supported raising the minimum wage, and 49% opposed it. A simple majority is all that is needed for the measure to pass.
Massachusetts
Question 5 in Massachusetts would change the way that tipped employees are paid. The base salary for tipped employees is typically far lower than that of non-tipped workers because the extra income is made up in the form of tips.
Voters will have to decide whether they want to gradually (by 2029) increase tipped wages to match the Bay State’s normal minimum wage of $15. Of note, the ballot initiative would still allow for those workers to be tipped on top of their base salary. The current base salary for tipped workers is $6.75.
Proponents of the measure argued that tipped workers don’t always earn enough in tips to make up the gap between base pay and minimum wage and that, given the cost of living, an increase in wages is only fair.
Opponents contend that raising the cost burden for restaurant and bar owners would make those businesses more difficult to operate. Those businesses might also have to add service fees in order to make up for the losses, meaning that servers could end up earning less in tips.
The overwhelming majority of the about $1 million in funding supporting the measure comes from the liberal group One Fair Wage, which promotes minimum wage increases. Some $1.5 million in donations opposing the measure have flowed in from the Massachusetts Restaurant Association and individual restaurant owners.
Washington, D.C., passed a similar measure in 2022. In that case, employers in Washington will be required to pay $16.10 base wages per hour to tipped employees by 2027, which is the minimum wage for non-tipped employees.
Missouri
Missourians will decide whether to raise their state’s minimum wage from its current level of $12.30 per hour, established in 2018. Proposition A would raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2026, starting with an increase to $13.75 next year.
The proposition would also mandate that companies with 15 or fewer employees give their employees at least five paid sick days per year, while those with more than 15 workers must provide at least seven paid sick days annually.
The Missouri Workers Center is one of the groups supporting the proposal. The group argues that raising the minimum wage is a matter of fairness, and would help the state’s overall economy by spurring further economic activity.
A group that obtained the signatures for the proposed law change published a list on its website showing support from several labor unions and labor groups as well as liberal organizations.
“When workers like me get a raise, my family can shop at mom-and-pop shops, and small businesses will win as well,” Missouri Workers Center Leader Terrence Wise told Fox4. “Prop A doesn’t target small businesses. We’re going after Walmart, Amazon, McDonald’s, big corporations who can afford to give workers raises.”
The campaign for passage of Proposition A has raised over $5 million for the cause, but there hasn’t reportedly been an organized effort to oppose the initiative, according to the Missouri Independent. Despite that, groups like the state’s Chamber of Commerce have stated that they oppose it.
The history of minimum wage increases
Minimum wage increases typically do well across the country. From 1996 to 2024, there have been 28 different minimum wage increase ballot initiatives voters have decided upon. Of those, nearly 93% have been approved, with just two such votes failing in the past three decades. The last time an increase was voted down was in 1996.
The last ballot measures for minimum wage came during the 2022 midterm elections and involved voters in Nebraska, Nevada, and Washington — all passed with relatively strong support.
The economics of the minimum wage
The debate over the minimum wage has been going on for decades.
Dean Baker, co-founder of the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research, told the Washington Examiner that moderate increases in the minimum wage have proved to have little material effects on overall state employment, a concern that critics of wage increases have raised.
Baker said that the lack of negative effects of minimum wage hikes has even surprised him. “To be quite honest, there were many cases where, you know, I thought we would see an effect,” Baker said.
He added that the other part of the story is the rapid inflation of the past few years, which has made life more difficult for many Americans. “It does make sense to try and at least have the wage keep pace with inflation, if not outpace,” Baker said in an interview.
But critics think that wages shouldn’t be completely set by the government but rather by the markets. Sean Higgins, a research fellow at the libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, said he thinks such ballot initiatives are well-meaning but argues that they are a “backwards way” of helping the working poor.
“The best thing for them is simply a tight labor market where wages and benefits are rising on their own because employers are competing for workers,” he told the Washington Examiner.
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Higgins said that part of the reason there have been spikes in inflation is because wages keep rising.
“Then the spikes in inflation cause more pressure to continually raise wages, and it becomes a wage-price spiral issue, where one is always chasing the other,” he added.