Wage the great wage debate: should utah raise its minimum wage?

• Author: Sutherland, Spencer

During his State of the Union address earlier this year, President Barack Obama encouraged Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. Such a wage hike, up from the current rate of $7.25 per hour, would represent the first increase to the federal minimum wage since 2009.

So far, members of Congress have been unwilling to step into the heated debate between proponents of the wage increase, who argue that wages have not kept up with inflation, and opponents, who worry that higher wages will equal higher costs and more layoffs.

Washington's trepidation, however, hasn't stopped individual states from taking matters into their own hands. This year alone, 34 states considered increases to the minimum wage. As of June 1, 22 states have minimum wages above the national standard--but Utah is not one of them.

WAGE WARS

During this year's legislative session, Utah was one of 34 states considering whether to make a change to its wage laws. Now retired Rep. Lynn Hemingway, D-Salt Lake City, introduced House Bill 73, legislation that would increase the state's minimum wage to $10.25 and raise the hourly pay of restaurant servers (those receiving tips) from $2.13 to $3.13.

Hemingway says his motivation for drafting the bill was simple. "I just don't believe that anyone who works full-time should live in poverty. I didn't call my bill a 'minimum wage' bill, I called it a 'living wage' bill. There was a reason for that. The bill was about trying to help people get out of poverty and help give them the ability to raise a family without the aura of 'Where's my next meal coming from?' hanging over their head."

Despite the fact that nearly 5 percent of Utah workers earn the federal minimum wage, the idea of raising the minimum wage in Utah was just as unpopular among Utah lawmakers as it has been in Washington, D.C. Hemingway was able to get the bill in front of the Utah Department of Human Services, but then it essentially crashed and burned. "It kind of went down in flames," he says.

Hemingway believes this is because House Bill 73 had an enormous hill to climb. One of the largest employers in the state is the state itself, employing more minimum wage workers than any other organization in Utah. As a result, the bill came with a fiscal note of $20 million, which represented the cost of bringing the lowest-paid state employees up to the proposed wage. Hemingway knew he wasn't likely to win that fight. "A $20. million note is not a hurdle, it's an 80-foot fence," he says. "There was no way to get over or...