COLUMBUS – An effort to put a minimum-wage increase before Ohio voters has passed another hurdle.
Language for a proposed ballot issue to increase the minimum wage gradually to $13 an hour by 2025 was approved by the Ohio Ballot Board. Now supporters must collect about 450,000 petition signatures by July 1 to put the measure before voters in November.
Those working for the ballot issue say an Ohioan working full time for Ohio’s current minimum wage of $8.70 an hour is paid just over $18,000 a year, leaving a full-time worker with a family of three below the poverty line, and are critical of lawmakers who have failed to raise the wage.
“The communities that the organizations that are a part of our effort represent have been hurting for too long and we know that we can’t wait for help from Columbus,” James Hayes, spokesman for Ohioans for Raising the Wage, said.
A 2006 voter-approved initiative indexed annual wage increases to inflation.
Concerns have been raised about the impact on businesses