Supporters of a $15 minimum wage in Ohio are optimistic that they’ll get a constitutional amendment on November’s ballot.

They’ve already gathered more than 350,000 signatures, said Mariah Ross, campaign manager of Raise the Wage Ohio. Supporters have until July to get more than 400,000 valid signatures. 

Ross, like many supporters, believes getting enough signatures is very doable. Raise the Wage Ohio is affiliated with One Fair Wage, a nonprofit organization pushing to raise the minimum wage in states and localities throughout the United States.

“Many people are already feeling the high cost of living, the rising costs of living, especially in Cleveland,” she said. “Just about everyone’s getting those issues [we’re promoting.] They’re seeing the need for a pay increase.”

Ross said the goal is to turn in about 700,000 signatures. Constitutional amendments and ballot initiative campaigns often aim to collect substantially more than the required number of signatures to offset the ones elections officials deem invalid.

Signatures are rejected for a variety of reasons, ranging from the person being an unregistered voter to the signature not being written in ink. The proposed constitutional amendment basically revises the 2006 amendment governing minimum wage increases.

Ross said the campaign is targeting low-participation voters, whom supporters believe could benefit from the wage hike. She said about 30% of workers in Ohio would be affected by the minimum wage increasing to $15. Ross said the top three sectors in which they work are restaurants, healthcare and retail. Healthcare tends to be a higher-paying industry, but not for low- and semi-skilled workers such as home health aides.

 “We’re going to be particularly working with unlikely voters to turn them out on this issue, so that they can vote themselves a raise,” she said.

This is how the amendment would lead to a $15 minimum wage in Ohio

Ohio’s minimum wage is currently $10.45 an hour. The proposed amendment would raise it to $12.75 on Jan. 1, 2025. On Jan. 1, 2026, it would increase to $15.

The proposed amendment would eliminate the subminimum wage for tipped workers in Ohio, such as restaurant servers. The tipped minimum wage is currently $5.25.  Employers are required to make up the difference if workers’ wages and tips don’t equal an hourly rate of $10.45.

Replacing the subminimum tipped wage wouldn’t fully become effective until 2029. It would be phased in with a series of incremental raises.

Ross noted that the amendment would eliminate other subminimum wages, such as the youth minimum wage. Ohio’s minimum wage for 14- and 15-year-olds is currently $7.25.

In 2006, voters approved a state constitutional amendment that ties Ohio’s minimum-wage increases to inflation. Minimum wage workers are getting a raise of 35 cents an hour in 2024 because inflation increased 3.7% between Sept. 1, 2022 and Aug. 31, 2023. Indexing the minimum wage to inflation will still be in effect if the initiative passes. The proposed amendment calls for the $12.75 and $15 increases as well as resuming indexing the minimum wage to inflation on Jan. 1, 2027.

Ross said the goal is to bring Ohio’s minimum wage more in line with the living wage. This is what a worker “must earn to support his or herself and their families,” according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Calculator. In Ohio, a single person with no children needs to earn an hourly wage of $15.33. In Cuyahoga County, it is $15.61.

“Anyone who’s working 40 hours a week should be able to pay for groceries, housing  and things like that,” Ross said.

Will raising the wage help or hurt the economy?

Steve Stivers, president and chief executive officer of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, said the organization isn’t against workers receiving “fair wages.” However, the chamber says the proposed amendment could have negative economic effects.

 “The Ohio Chamber of Commerce believes that employers need the flexibility to design wage and benefits packages that best meet the specific needs of their workforce,” he wrote in an email to Signal Cleveland. “Businesses have already increased wages and benefits to counterbalance widespread workforce shortages, and further government interference will only harm Ohio’s economy for employers, workers and consumers alike. 

“Workers deserve fair wages, but minimums that are set too high for every business to accommodate will result in layoffs, escalated shifts to automation and stunted economic development and job growth,” Stivers wrote.

Even a recent report by the progressive Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute says that employers have been raising wages due to the tight labor market since the pandemic. The report, which looked at Ohio and the other 21 states that hiked their minimum wages on Jan. 1, said that fewer workers than usual were affected by such increases because employers had already raised wages.

Ross agrees competition has led to higher pay for many low-income workers. However, she said that these workers shouldn’t have to be subjected to the whims of employers in determining whether they will earn a living wage. Ross said while many employers have raised wages since the pandemic, many still have not.

Ross asserts that the $15 minimum wage will be good for more than the workers getting raises. She said Raise the Wage research shows that such increases will put about $7 billion into Ohio’s economy in a matter of a few years.

“When you increase pay for people who make the least, they usually spend it rather quickly,” she said. “They use it on necessities and other things that are critical to their lives. This spending affects businesses in a positive way.”