Voters Approved Wage Hikes, But GOP Lawmakers Have Other Ideas
- Lawmakers are already amending voter-approved wage hikes
- Raises threatened by leaders in Maine and Washington State
Employee Michael Knez grabs empty cans to be filled with Wynkoop Brewing Co.'s B3K Black Lager at the company's facility in Denver, Colorado, U.S., on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. The Wynkoop Brewing Co. was founded in 1988 by a group of entrepreneurs led by Denver's mayor John Hickenlooper.
Photographer: Matthew Staver/BloombergVoters took to the polls in November and approved big hikes in four states’ minimum wages: Washington State, Colorado, Maine and Arizona.
But the increases may not actually take effect as voters intended because elected representatives -- mostly Republicans -- are moving to rein them in. In Washington, where voters opted for a $13.50 an hour minimum wage by 2020, and Maine, where it was set to rise to $12 that year, state legislators have proposed a battery of bills to water down the increases. The city council in Flagstaff, Arizona has done the same to a local initiative that would have boosted the wage floor to $12 this year, sooner than the statewide increase.