Voters okay higher minimum wages, balk at more radical ideas

The ironic thing about Donald Trump’s ‘Make America Great Again’ rhetoric is that it overlaps to a degree with old-school Democratic populism. This can be seen in the fact that as Trump beat the polls and won a second term Tuesday, voters also approved measures to increase the minimum wage in two states. However, the message was mixed elsewhere with voters balking at other more extreme progressive measures in California and Massachusetts. Voters apparently decided they would hurt the economy more than they would help.

At the time this article was posted, measures to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour in Alaska, and Missouri appear to have passed. Nebraska voters also passed a measure to require employers to provide paid sick leave.  

California voters, on the other hand, may yet balk at raising their state minimum, currently $16 an hour, to $18 an hour. With more than half of the precincts reporting in, the “no” votes have a slight edge.

The votes to increase minimum wages in Alaska and Missouri were not surprising. Straight increases in the state minimums usually win in elections because voters tend to see them as low-cost ways to help low-income workers. Also, $15 as a minimum has become so common that advocates could argue that they were just catching up to the rest of the nation. Minimum wages are nevertheless a backwards and ineffective way to help low-income workers.

There are limits to the public’s generosity, however. California’s current minimum is $16 an hour and it is indexed to inflation. Raising it another $2 was a bridge too far, argued Jot Condie, president of the California Restaurant Association. “[I]t’s going to be a huge burden for restaurant customers because the inevitable result here will be price increases.” The argument appears to have resonated with at least some voters.

Arizona voters rejected a restaurant industry-backed proposal to allow a special tipped worker wage. The proposal would have allowed employers to pay servers 25 percent less than the state minimum wage, currently $14.35, if the servers made more than $2 above that minimum due to their additional money from tips.

Flipping the script, Massachusetts voters rejected by a solid margin a measure to strip away that state’s special $6.75 tipped worker wage. The measure would have instead required the servers to be paid the state regular minimum wage of $15 with no exceptions for extra income through tips.

Many Massachusetts waiters and waitresses opposed ending their state’s special tipped wage, despite the measure being intended to help them. They argued that it would instead backfire, forcing up restaurant costs and driving away customers due to higher menu prices. That would cause more restaurant closures, leaving servers without jobs. Gov. Maura Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, both Democrats, were among the ones that came out against the measure.

“As former waitresses who know what it’s like to rely on tips, we know how hard our servers work and believe they deserve to be well-compensated for all they do,” Healey and Driscoll declared in election’s final days. “It’s why we are joining with servers across the state in opposing Question 5 because we believe it will lower their compensation, not raise it.”

The message here appears to be that voters are willing to back measures advertised as helping workers if they think the measures won’t disrupt the economy too much. They become more skeptical when they realize such efforts might hurt their own pocketbooks.