Politics

Vote on Oklahoma minimum wage hike delayed nearly two years, longest wait in decade

KOSU | By Lionel Ramos

Published September 16, 2024 at 5:15 AM CDT

In Oklahoma, the minimum wage is currently set at $7.25 per hour, which is the same as the federal minimum wage rate. The state hasn't seen an increase in its minimum wage since 2008. The opportunity to change that won't come until midway through 2026.

Oklahomans will vote on whether to raise the minimum wage in almost two years.

Gov. Kevin Stitt could have made it happen much sooner. Instead, he set the longest period in the last decade between an initiative petition’s signatures being turned in and its actual election.

Oklahomans have voted on 23 state questions since 2014. The one to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2029 is to be the fourth in that time not to be held in tandem with a November General election.

It’ll be the third outside that calendar during Stitt’s administration. His chosen election date is June 16, 2026.

Dave Hamby, spokesperson for the center-left think-tank Oklahoma Policy Institute, said pushing the election date almost two years from now shows a lack of political will from the governor to get the measure passed.

“There is a strategy of putting questions that you may not want to have full consideration by voters into its own standalone special election or primaries that don't have the same level of participation that a general election does,” Hamby said.

Stitt wields the sole power to schedule state question elections, per the State Constitution. A spokesperson for the governor’s office, Abegail Cave, said the governor’s choice was not a political one, but the most cost-effective, given his options.

“Consistent with state law, [The Secretary of State] and the State Election Board recommended the next possible statewide ballot, which would be the June 2026 statewide primary,” Cave said in a statement. “This choice saves taxpayers over $1.8 million and prevents the need for the Election Board to request supplemental funding from the Legislature to arrange a standalone statewide election.”

Amber England, who is a chief organizer and spokesperson for Raise the Wage Oklahoma, doesn’t accept that reasoning.

“He's costing Oklahomans a lot of money that would be going back into their pockets,” England said. “It's very disappointing that the governor will play politics with the lives of the nearly 320,000 Oklahomans that would be either directly or indirectly impacted by the passage of State Question 832.”

It’s ironic the governor is claiming he doesn’t want to cost the state money by paying for a special election, she said, because when doing so meant another state question would be more likely to fail, he didn’t hesitate.

“He put the recreational marijuana state question on the ballot in March of 2023, which was a special election,” England said. “He could have done that this time.”

Once the election takes place, and if the question passes, the state minimum wage would increase to whatever the cost of living would necessitate, she said.

Or, she said, Stitt could follow the will of the more than 150,000 voters who signed the petition and hoped to see the question on the ballot this year.

“If he actually cared about putting more money back into the pockets of Oklahomans, and if he respected the will of voters, he would put it on the ballot immediately.”