On Jan. 1, Ohio鈥檚 minimum wage rose automatically from $8.30 per hour to $8.55 per hour for workers who aren't tipped. (For tipped workers, the base wage increased from $4.15 to $4.30 per hour.)
That鈥檚 because a passed over a decade ago requires the minimum wage to keep up with a cost-of-living measure called the . In economist-speak this is called 鈥渋ndexing to inflation.鈥� Ohio is among several states that also index their minimum wage to inflation including Alaska, Florida, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota, according to the .
鈥淚f the cost of groceries, gasoline, housing, goes up by X percent, the minimum wage that following year is going to go up by that same percent,鈥� said Ben Zipperer, an economist at the progressive Economic Policy Institute. The goal of indexing, Zipperer said, is to prevent workers at the lowest end of the income spectrum from falling behind as the cost of living rises.
Fantasia Pettis, 25, who makes Ohio鈥檚 minimum wage working at a Subway sandwich shop in Cleveland, said 鈥淚 feel like it鈥檚 still not enough.鈥�
鈥淛ust because it went up a quarter,鈥� Pettis said. 鈥淵ou could find a quarter walking down the street.鈥�
Assuming a 40-hour workweek, this year鈥檚 25 cent raise adds up to approximately $43.33 per month before taxes for Pettis. Asked whether she feels she is getting by on her current income, Pettis shrugged. After bills, groceries, and chipping in for her father鈥檚 medical expenses, she said she is 鈥渂arely鈥� making it.
Not only does she have trouble meeting basic expenses, Pettis said, but those basics are also getting more expensive. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the consumer price index between November 2017 and November 2018.
[Economic Policy Institute]
Still, Zipperer said, a law that essentially guarantees a yearly cost-of-living raise may be better than leaving it up to state or federal legislatures, which he argued may be too slow to respond to inflation each year.
"Tying these increases so that there's some kind of automatic process makes them much more predictable,鈥� Zipperer said. 鈥淏etween the late 1930s and late 1960s, there were enough increases in the [federal] minimum wage that it was tracking inflation,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hen, after the late 1960s, minimum wage increases became much less frequent and smaller. 鈥� As a result, the value of the minimum wage relative to everything in our economy has fallen.鈥�
Indeed, .
鈥淭he minimum wage is going to keep on increasing, and we should try to keep it up with the cost of living,鈥� said Alex Gleason, manager of a bar in Cleveland鈥檚 Ohio City neighborhood called the Old Angle Tavern.
Gleason said he currently pays his employees more than Ohio鈥檚 minimum wage, so if the wage floor only increases a couple of percent every year, it will be a while before his business feels any pressure. His bigger concern, he said, are the calls for a $15 minimum wage at the state and federal levels. According to the progressive think tank Policy Matters Ohio, that would mean , many of whom have children. But Gleason says it would be tough on the service industry.
鈥淚t's a very low-profit-margin business,鈥� Gleason said, 鈥渟o that would be a big deal for some businesses that are barely getting by.鈥�
A wage hike that large could also hurt employees, said Aparna Mathur, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
鈥淵ou could find those employers are now less likely to hire new minimum wage workers,鈥� Mathur said, 鈥渙r they're less likely to keep existing workers on the job.鈥� Or employers might decide it will cost less in the long run to replace those workers with machines. A better way to help lower-income workers, Mathur said, would be to expand the .
All that said, if inflation stays relatively low, around 2 or 3 percent, Mathur said 鈥渆mployers can offset some of those hikes by passing on the cost to consumers. The employment effects are likely to be minimal.鈥�
While an indexed minimum wage can help prevent low-wage workers from losing a certain standard of living, Zipperer, from the Economic Policy Institute, said these policies don鈥檛 address a more fundamental question: What if the minimum wage, even with yearly increases, is not enough for a person to live on?
For instance, according to MIT鈥檚 Living Wage Calculator, a single adult in Ohio needs to earn about $10.47 per hour to stay just above the poverty line. Currently, the state鈥檚 minimum wage of $8.55 is nearly $2 short of that.
鈥淚f you don鈥檛 raise the minimum wage to an appropriate level to begin with,鈥� Zipperer said, 鈥渋ndexing kind of locks it in to that level.鈥�
Nevertheless, the District of Columbia plus several states including California, Colorado, and Maine are planning to adopt indexing in the coming years.
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