Prop 206: the Minimum Wage
By Fraser Allan Best, John Arlia, Devin Conley and Jan Tomse
For many Arizona residents, the main focus of November 8 is the presidential election, but small business owners and workers across the state will also be keeping a very close eye on a proposition to raise the minimum wage.
In addition to choosing our next president, Arizonans are also voting on Proposition 206, which would raise the state’s minimum wage from $8.05 to $10 in 2017 and up to $12 by 2020. If ratified, Prop. 206 would also create a right to paid sick days for workers.
A recent Cronkite News poll of over 700 Arizona residents predicted that 58.1% of voters were in favor of the initiative, but that estimate might be low after speaking with a number of voters at a polling station on 3rd Avenue and Fillmore St. in Downtown Phoenix.
Dominique Medina, who voted yes to Prop. 206, is tired of seeing people work 40-hour weeks and still struggle to make ends meet.
In addition to choosing our next president, Arizonans are also voting on Proposition 206, which would raise the state’s minimum wage from $8.05 to $10 in 2017 and up to $12 by 2020. If ratified, Prop. 206 would also create a right to paid sick days for workers.
A recent Cronkite News poll of over 700 Arizona residents predicted that 58.1% of voters were in favor of the initiative, but that estimate might be low after speaking with a number of voters at a polling station on 3rd Avenue and Fillmore St. in Downtown Phoenix.
Dominique Medina, who voted yes to Prop. 206, is tired of seeing people work 40-hour weeks and still struggle to make ends meet.
“I think people who work full time shouldn’t have to live in poverty,” Medina said. “I think there was a time in our country when you could work at a gas station and pay for your entire family to live.”
Nearly 44,000 Arizona workers currently make the minimum wage or less, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Medina hopes to see wage increases eventually match inflation rates and believes that businesses will not be majorly affected by the change. “This idea that somehow, jobs and having to pay us a living wage, is going to affect businesses and their ability to be in business is ridiculous,” he said. |
Rachel Friebe, who admitted she didn’t know a lot about the Proposition before voting, was also in favor of the legislation.
“I think that we should try and support everyone from the bottom all the way to the top,” Friebe said. “Having a living wage for people is a step in the right direction.”
Opposition to that opinion was hard to find. With any detractors holding their cards close to their chest, only voters supporting the increase made their voices heard. The one modest exception to this rule was a political aide who, while refusing to give much detail, voiced a interested opposition to the bill.
“I work for a politician who's against it,” said the middle-aged man, who preferred to remain anonymous, after exiting the polling station where he voted on the proposition, “and I shouldn't talk about it”. |
This tight-lipped approach from politicians opposing the proposition is a common feature to the minimum wage debate in the state of Arizona. While democrats supporting the proposition have made advocacy for the increase a central talking point, Republican opponents have not been so vocal.
Senator McCain has not made the minimum a talking point for his candidacy as the incumbent against Ann Kirkpatrick (D). McCain only recently elaborated on his position when asked directly in a an interview with the Weekly.
“Somebody is going to have to convince me that it’s good for employment in America, and I don’t think it is,” he said, introducing a counterpoint to the argument that the proposition is pro-worker.
That counterpoint, in its most basic form, is articulated by economists like Walter Block, a professor at Loyola University in Louisiana. Block describes the minimum wage as a “high jump bar” and believes, “The higher the level stipulated by the minimum wage law, the harder is it to ‘jump’ into employment,” he wrote in an article for Rockwell.com.
For Block, increasing the minimum wage raises the level of value that a worker has to provide to a business for managers to justify hiring them. In the context of this proposition, any worker who can only provide $10 of additional revenue to a business will simply lose their job when employers are required to pay them $12.
While Arizona lawmakers and residents don’t know exactly how Proposition 206 will affect the state’s economy, they won’t have to wait much longer to see whether the legislation will pass. Voices of Prop. 206 supporters were loud and clear outside the Fillmore polling station, but the true voice of Arizona’s nearly 3.59 million registered voters will be clear in tomorrow's results.
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