More than one in 20 working Ohioans will earn a little more at the end of the week than they did at the beginning, according to Policy Matters Ohio.
The nonpartisan, Cleveland-based liberal think tank estimates 277,000 Ohioans will benefit from Thursday’s annual increase in Ohio’s minimum wage.
Ohio’s minimum wage will increase by 15 cents to $8.10 an hour and the minimum wage for tipped workers will increase 7 cents to $4.05 an hour.
Ohio is one of 23 states boosting its minimum wage in 2015. Ohio voters approved annual increases tied to inflation through a 2006 amendment to the state Constitution.
Thursday’s increase will spark an estimated $36.3 million increase in economic growth because of expected increase in consumer spending, according to an analysis of Census data by the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan, liberal economic think tank.
Thursday’s increase puts Ohio ahead of the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour but behind 19 states. Hanauer said as cities and states across the country raise wages, Ohio needs to raise it further than the constitutional increase.
“It’s time for Ohio to update our policy to better reflect our economic reality,” Amy Hanauer, executive director of Policy Matters Ohio, said in a press release. “While $8.10 an hour is better than $7.95, people still can’t live on that wage.”
Not everyone agrees with that sentiment.
Greg Lawson, a policy analyst with the Buckeye Institute, a conservative think tank, said most of those affected by the increase aren’t single breadwinners but are young people or are working to supplement another household income.
Lawson said minimum wage jobs should help workers gain skills they can take to another, better-paying job and mandated increases in the minimum wage force businesses to hire fewer workers or turn entry-level jobs into unpaid internships.
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