The minimum-wage debate is heating up here and across the country, fueled by stagnant wages and labor- backed efforts to draw voters to the polls in a midterm election year.
A ballot initiative here proposes to raise the minimum wage in Colorado from $5.15 to $6.85, with adjustments for inflation in future years.
To understand what’s at stake, consider Colorado’s food-service industry, which employs 176,000 workers and accounts for more than $7 billion in sales.
The initiative also calls for the minimum hourly wage of waitstaff and others who make tips to rise from $2.13 to $3.83. That would also rise with inflation.
“It would definitely affect us,” said Nate Barnhart, a manager of the Armadillo Restaurant in Fort Collins. “…It would probably lead to raised (restaurant) prices everywhere.”
Most Denver restaurants pay higher than minimum wage already, said Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, who owns several metro-area brewpubs and restaurants through a blind trust.
“Most restaurateurs don’t like the minimum wage,” he said last week. “I’ve always had a grudging acceptance of it.”
He said he would prefer that the minimum wage be handled at the federal level, but if not, he supports a state minimum-wage hike and the concept of indexing for inflation.
The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, which represents 3,000 area businesses, opposes a state minimum-wage hike on three grounds: It should be done at the federal level, it shouldn’t be a state constitutional amendment, and the wage shouldn’t automatically rise with inflation.
“To put the minimum wage on autopilot is a recipe for losing jobs at the bottom end of the spectrum,” said Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., an arm of the chamber.
While rising wages mean rising costs, they’re the same costs borne by all businesses, said Steve Adams, president of the Colorado AFL-CIO, which is backing the minimum-wage hike.
“I don’t think they’re going to go out of business because of a rise in the minimum wage,” Adams said.
The issue is political as well as economic. Some Democratic strategists hope the minimum- wage measure “might help to increase turnout, particularly among economically downscaled voters who tend to vote Democratic,” said Eric Sondermann, a Denver-based political analyst.
The AFL-CIO and other groups are pushing for a voter-approved minimum wage in at least five other states: Arizona, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and Ohio.
The federal rate of $5.15 an hour has not risen in nine years. Its buying power has eroded with inflation. Workers at other levels are also pinched since wages adjusted for inflation have erased gains.
A congressional effort to raise the minimum wage to $7.25 by mid-2009 failed last week.
More than 20 states already have a minimum wage higher than the federal rate, and some cities are taking it on. Two years ago, Sante Fe launched a so-called living wage that’s now $9.50 an hour. The Chicago City Council recently approved an ordinance requiring many big-box retailers to pay $10 an hour, plus an estimated $3 an hour in benefits, by 2010. Target Corp. has threatened to drop plans to build two Chicago stores if the measure isn’t vetoed.
While the debate rages, Denver cook Adolfo Salazar, 36, said he just wants to provide for his family. Last week, after the lunch rush was over, Salazar raced from his job at Rockies Express in a food court on the 16th Street Mall to work at Buckhorn Exchange. He makes $8 an hour at Rockies and $10.50 an hour at Buckhorn.
Even working about 50 hours a week between the two jobs, Salazar said he barely breaks even.
“I have nothing left at the end of the month,” said Salazar, ticking off typical monthly expenses of rent, food, phone, truck insurance, gas, basic cable and loan repayment. “It’s just not enough money.”
Staff writer Ameera Butt contributed to this report.
Staff writer Beth Potter can be reached at 303-820-1503 or bpotter@denverpost.com.
