Minimum wage hike proposal stirs debate

Nov. ballot measure would increase hourly pay to $6.85

David Milstead, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 5, 2006 at midnight

Text size

More Money & Markets

Proponents and opponents of Amendment 42 - a measure to increase the state's minimum wage to $6.85 from $5.15 and mandate annual increases in the state constitution - squared off in a debate on -KBDI-Channel 12 on Wednesday. The debate will be replayed at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 15.

Here are some highlights:

Why yes?

Linda Meric: Hard work deserves fair pay. Colorado's minimum wage hasn't gone up in almost 10 years, and that means more hardworking Colorado families are living in poverty. Minimum wage today is $5.15 an hour. Full time, that's $206 a week, less than $11,000 a year. No matter how you calculate it, that's not enough to make ends meet. A single mom would need more than two full-time minimum-wage jobs just to pay the average rent on a two-bedroom metro-area apartment. That's before she buys a bag of groceries, that's before she puts a drop of gas in her tank. It's time for Colorado to join the 22 other states that have already raised the minimum wage.

Why no?

Eric Morgan: The short answer is this is an irresponsible approach to raising the minimum wage. There are a lot of ways to go about raising the minimum wage, and the proponents of Amendment 42 have picked the most draconian approach of any place in the country. It's got less flexibility, it carves it in the constitution, it's got no ability to adjust when economic conditions change in the future. It's tied to a consumer price index for the annual increases to inflation that's centered in the Denver-Boulder area. We don't think it's fair to impose that cost of living on the entire state. It's not fair to small-business owners in Wray or Pueblo or Grand Junction.

How many people does it affect?

Jan Rigg: The Blue Book is going to tell you that it's 1.5 percent of 2.2 million, about 37,000 people (making minimum wage).

Linda Meric: Research by the Bell Policy Center estimates that 138,000 Coloradans would be directly affected. Some of those are people currently earning less than $6.85 an hour, and some of those are earning just above that rate.

Jan Rigg: People who are making minimum wage, the data out there will show you that 44 percent of them live in households that have an average income in Colorado of $53,000. These are not people living alone raising families. Another 31 percent are young adults between the ages of 19 and 24.

Linda Meric: Seventy percent of minimum-wage earners in Colorado are adults over age 20, and fully half the families that would be affected by a minimum-wage increase are relying on a minimum-wage worker's earnings for all of their weekly earnings. So we really are talking about people who are trying to make ends meet on these low wages and trying to support families on these low wages.

On putting it in the constitution:

Jan Rigg: We are the only state that has three sentences of the most severe language. . . . Florida's language is three pages long and allows for legislative remedies. Most of these have been done through the legislative process. Thereby you can put things in there that exempt small business, make sure young employees can still get jobs and they're not discriminated against. In Ohio, which has it on the ballot, and Missouri, they exempt the mentally and physically handicapped so those people don't miss an opportunity for entry-level jobs.

Leslie Moody: The constitution is there to protect certain inalienable rights. Colorado's Constitution has granted women the right to vote, it protects the victims of crime, and it should protect the rights of people to earn fair pay for the work they perform.

Jan Rigg: But it shouldn't interfere with the private relationship between an employer and employee. Fiscal policy in the constitution is wrong.

Leslie Moody: It's a government rule that protects the rights of the poorest in our economy to earn a decent living. We've waited 10 years for Congress to deal with it, and they have not dealt with it, so states are taking it into their own hands.

Linda Meric: We haven't been able to trust politicians to keep the minimum wage at a fair level, and without a constitutional amendment, we can't trust they won't cave in to pressure from well-funded business groups to repeal or reduce the minimum wage the citizens of Colorado vote on in November.

Jan Rigg: That's preposterous!

Linda Meric: Other states where people have voted to put it in statute instead of the constitution have protections that prevent legislators from undoing those things. Colorado does not, so putting it in the constitution is the only way we can guarantee the minimum wage will go up.

Debate participants

• Jan Rigg and Eric Morgan, representing Respect Colorado's Constitution, a business-backed group.

• Leslie Moody of Colorado AFL-CIO and Linda Meric of 9to5, National Association of Working Women.

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News