OKPOLICY.ORG
OK Policy Research Director Anthony Flores contributed to this article.
In summer 2024, a citizen-led ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage collected more than 157,000 verified signatures — 65,000 more than what was required — with ample time to make it onto the November 2024 general election ballot. Despite voters’ enthusiasm, delays in the certification process pushed State Question 832 past the deadline. Then, in September 2024, Gov. Stitt set the vote for June 2026 — meaning that Oklahomans will have been waiting almost two years before they can decide whether to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.
While it is unfortunate that elected officials chose to delay the will of the people, the extra time gives us an opportunity to fully explore what raising the minimum wage would mean for Oklahoma. SQ 832 includes multiple provisions beyond raising the minimum wage, aimed at helping Oklahoma families and bolstering the economy.
SQ 832 gradually raises the minimum wage
While SQ 832 does raise the minimum wage, it does so gradually to give businesses and employers time to adjust. Per the language of the initiative petition, the wage would increase to $9 in 2025, then increase by $1.50 each year from 2026 through 2029, ultimately reaching a total of $15/hour.
As originally written, the initiative petition phased in the minimum wage increase over a five-year period. However, because of the long delay to put SQ 832 in front of voters, the prescribed increases will have a different timeline. If voters approve SQ 832, the first minimum wage increase would be to $12 an hour in 2027, hopping over the $9 and $10.50 per hour intervals in order to align with the scheduled increases voters approved. This delay means that many Oklahomans will have to wait two years longer than planned before seeing their wages increase.
Tying the minimum wage to inflation ensures workers don’t have to wait for government action to see their wages grow
One of the most significant provisions in SQ 832 is that, starting in 2030, the state’s minimum wage would automatically be adjusted every year based on changes to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). This annual adjustment would help ensure that the minimum wage meets rising costs from inflation so minimum wage earners can meet the most basic costs of living.
The CPI is a measure of inflation for the typical American household. It tracks the average changes in the cost of typical household goods and services such as housing, food, and medical care.
The Consumer Price Index is commonly used to make cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security benefits, labor contracts, and other applications, helping to ensure they keep pace with rising costs. Often referred to as “headline inflation,” it is frequently cited in news headlines to track when consumer prices rise or fall. For example, the Reuters headline “US annual consumer price increase slows to below 3% as inflation ebbs” refers to a slower annual increase in the CPI. Tying Social Security to the CPI ensures payments keep pace with the cost of living and people who rely on them maintain their standard of living, rather than waiting years for Congress to raise their payments. Applying the same principle to the minimum wage helps ensure workers aren’t left behind.
Tying a state minimum wage to the Consumer Price Index isn’t unusual; we can look to other states that have passed similar laws to gauge how much future increases could be. For instance, Montana, Ohio, and Maine have all indexed increases to their minimum wage based on the CPI. Sixteen other states have or are set to index increases to their minimum wage based on either the Consumer Price Index or current cost-of-living. Over the last four years, the average increase per year to these states’ minimum wage was 22 cents — modest but important increases that prevent wages from stagnating while allowing employers the flexibility to raise wages even further.
SQ 832 eliminates exemptions for certain workers, meaning more people will see their wages rise
Currently, several categories of workers are exempt from Oklahoma’s minimum wage — exemptions we can trace back to historic and systemic racism. SQ 832 would remove several of these exemptions, ensuring more Oklahoma workers are guaranteed a minimum wage in exchange for their labor. SQ 832 removes exemptions for tipped workers, an industry which is more likely to be staffed by people of color and women, and for farmworkers, of whom the majority are foreign-born. Further, SQ 832 also removes exemptions for part-time employees, domestic service workers, and feed store employees. Addressing pay disparities in these industries is an essential step in dismantling wage laws shaped by discriminatory history.
SQ 832 would help more than 300,000 Oklahomans
Raising the minimum wage will benefit hundreds of thousands of Oklahomans. About 200,000 workers in the state would be directly affected — those earning at least 80 percent of the current $7.25 wage floor (about $5.80 an hour) but less than the proposed minimum wage. It would also indirectly affect another 119,000 Oklahomans, workers whose wages are greater than or equal to the proposed minimum wage of $15 but less than 115 percent of the proposed wage (about $17.25 an hour). In total, if SQ 832 were to pass, more than 300,000 — roughly the combined population of Norman, Edmond, and Moore — would see their wages rise.
For far too long, Oklahoma’s minimum wage has remained frozen at $7.25 per hour despite climbing prices and an ever-increasing cost of living. Raising the minimum wage and tying it to the Consumer Price Index will help ensure that the wages Oklahomans receive for their work can meet the most basic costs of living — and that Oklahomans don’t have to wait for the government to act to see their wages increase. SQ 832 will support Oklahoma families, strengthen the economy, and expand minimum wage protections to more workers than ever before, giving more Oklahomans the resources they need to build a secure future.
