(THE CENTER SQUARE) – A citizens group that wants Ohioans to vote to change the state constitution to raise the minimum wage now must start collecting signatures after it cleared the second hurdle Monday to get its plan on the ballot.
In a meeting that took a little more than five minutes, the Ohio Ballot Board voted the proposal from Raise the Wage Ohio contains only one constitutional amendment. Now, the group must collect signatures from registered voters equal to at least 10% of the vote cast in the most recent gubernatorial election. Those signatures must come from voters in at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 counties and, for each of those counties, the number must equal at least 5% of the vote cast in the most recent gubernatorial election.
If enough signatures are verified by the secretary of state, the petition then must be signed by the secretary of state at least 10 days before the beginning of any General Assembly session, and the secretary of state will send the petition to the General Assembly as soon as it convenes. The General Assembly has four months to act.
As previously reported by The Center Square, the petition would raise the state minimum wage to $10.50 an hour Jan. 1, 2025, and increase it annually from there for three years to reach $15 an hour Jan. 1, 2028.
It would also increase the minimum wage for inflation, beginning Jan. 1, 2029, and require employers pay employees who receive tips the full minimum wage with tips on top of the hourly rate.
In January, Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill to raise the state minimum wage to $15 an hour. It received an initial hearing in March in the Senate Workforce and Higher Education Committee but has not had a second hearing.
Ohio’s minimum wage is scheduled to increase Jan. 1 to $10.10 per hour for non-tipped employees and to $5.05 per hour for tipped employees. That's up from $9.30 per hour for non-tipped employees and $4.65 for tipped employees. The minimum wage will apply to employees of businesses with annual gross receipts of $372,000 or more per year.
Voters passed a constitutional amendment in 2006 that says Ohio’s minimum wage shall increase each Jan. 1 by the rate of inflation. According to the Ohio Department of Commerce, the state minimum wage is tied to the Consumer Price Index, which increased by 8.7% from Sept. 1, 2021 to Aug. 31, 2022.
