In 2006, Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment — Sacré bleu! — that tied minimum wage to inflation, so this year’s 25-cent increase corresponds with increases in the Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners and clerical workers. This upward adjustment happens every year.
(The minimum wage for tipped employees will increase from $4.15 to $4.30 per hour.)
Policy Matters Ohio, in a press release commenting on the annual hike, said that the automatic adjustment “is a critical safeguard that prevents the minimum wage from losing value over time because of inflation. Ohio’s new minimum wage will be worth just 72 percent of what the federal minimum wage was worth in 1968, $11.83 in today’s dollars.”
“The inflation adjustment keeps Ohio workers from falling further behind,” said researcher Michael Shields. “Moving forward, Ohio should put in place an increase beyond inflation to reflect our workforce’s improved productivity and get us back toward where wages once were.”
This article appears in Dec 26, 2018 – Jan 1, 2019.
