Ohio minimum wage adjusts for inflation to $10.70
Posted December 19, 2024 in Press Releases
Purchasing power the same as in 2007
Next month, Ohio’s minimum wage gets a 25-cent increase to $10.70 per hour to account for the impact of inflation. Some 313,300 Ohioans will be either directly or indirectly affected by this adjustment. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that approximately 112,700 Ohioans paid less than $10.70 will experience a direct wage increase, and 200,600 Ohioans paid slightly above the minimum wage will likely see an increase in their wages as employers adjust their pay scales. The minimum wage for tipped workers will increase to $5.35, with direct or projected indirect effects on every one of the 97,700 Ohioans in tipped occupations.
The adjustment will help 195,600 female and 117,400 male Ohioans. By Census-classified race/ethnicity, it will benefit 226,100 white workers, 51,400 Black workers, 16,900 Hispanic/Latine workers, 6,500 Asian workers, and 12,400 workers of “other race[s]/ethnicit[ies].” Nearly two-thirds of the workers affected are over 20 years old. Nearly three-quarters work more than 20 hours per week. Almost one in ten Ohio children — 227,400 total — live in homes that will be helped by this increase. Policy Matters Ohio economist Heather Smith issued the following statement:
“Ohio voters are to thank for next month’s increase in the minimum wage. Voters enshrined adjustments for inflation to the minimum wage law in 2006, when they voted overwhelmingly to raise the state minimum wage. Over 28% of Ohio families with incomes below the federal poverty level will get some relief from rising prices as a result.
As Policy Matters Ohio approaches its 25th anniversary, we reflect on the minimum wage prior to the monumental 2006 ballot issue. From 2000-2006, Ohio workers were paid according to the federal minimum wage: $5.15 an hour. In 2006, Ohioans voted to raise the wage to $6.85 with annual adjustments for inflation. The policy went into effect the following year; the new state minimum of $10.70 has the purchasing power of $6.85 in 2007.
While the adjustments in the minimum wage are critical to mitigating inflation, minimum-wage workers are still only taking home a fraction of what their grandparents did two generations ago. If Congress had required inflation adjustments to the federal minimum wage back when it was at its peak in 1968, it would be worth $14.81 today.
While a ballot issue raising the minimum wage for tipped and non-tipped workers to $15 per hour—with tips on top for those in tipped occupations—failed to receive the signatures necessary to appear on the ballot, the appetite for raising the baseline statewide continues. With the bare minimum annual wage needed for a single adult to make ends meet in Ohio ranging from $36,900 in Ashtabula County to $47,000 in Delaware County, $15 per hour is a necessary step toward economic justice.”