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What’s up this week at Oklahoma Policy Institute? The Weekly Wonk shares our most recent publications and other resources to help you stay informed about Oklahoma. Numbers of the Day and Policy Notes are from our daily news briefing, In The Know. Click here to subscribe to In The Know.
This Week from OK Policy
Oklahoma’s housing crisis met with legislative silence this session: For thousands of Oklahomans, the dream of a stable home is collapsing. Fast, cheap evictions, no real tenant protections, and rising housing costs have turned a basic human need into a daily crisis. Legislators had a number of policy solutions at their fingertips this session — yet they chose virtually none of them. [Sabine Brown / OK Policy]
Opinion: Wages Haven’t Kept Up — And Working Families Are Paying the Price: For years, Congress and elected officials across the country have sidestepped one of the clearest economic problems facing working families: the minimum wage no longer keeps pace with the real cost of living. Today, even full-time work at the federal minimum wage doesn’t pay enough to rent a market-rate two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country. And too often, politicians have intervened to keep it that way. [Gabriela Ramirez-Perez / OtherWords]
SQ 832 Communications Toolkit Available: OK Policy has created a communications toolkit for State Question 832 with ready-to-use talking points, graphics, sample social media posts, and other resources to help supporters share accurate information about Oklahoma’s minimum wage and the June 16 vote. Use the toolkit to start conversations, educate friends and family, share information online, and encourage voter participation in your community. [OK Policy]
Policy Matters: Oklahoma’s minimum wage is out of step with today’s economy: For years, debates about the minimum wage have been framed as a fight between workers and businesses. But many employers settled that debate long ago. They understand that attracting and keeping good employees requires offering more than the federal minimum wage. They know turnover is expensive, hiring takes time, and a reliable workforce is essential to serving customers and growing their business. [Shiloh Kantz / The Journal Record]
- From OK Policy: SQ 832 Information and Resources
Oklahoma takes a closer look at its early childhood services (Capitol Update): With the passage of House Bill 1979, Rep. Trish Ranson, D-Stillwater, and Sen. Chuck Hall, R-Perry, have taken the right approach to finding long-term solutions to Oklahoma’s childcare crisis and other urgent early childhood needs. The bill creates an Early Childhood Task Force to conduct a two-year study of Oklahoma’s early childhood services delivery system. A preliminary report will be due in November 2027, with the final report and recommendations due in November 2028. [Steve Lewis / Capitol Update]
OK Policy in the News
OK Policy selected for 2026–2028 Eviction Data Response Network Cohort: Over the next two years, OK Policy and 10 other organizations around the U.S. will work with New America’s Future of Land and Housing program to build comprehensive eviction data systems and assemble cross-sector problem-solving teams to leverage this data to move the needle on eviction prevention. [New America]
Fact check: GOP governor candidates get into weeds on taxes, records in office: In partnership with NonDoc, The Frontier fact-checked some claims Republican gubernatorial candidates made during the May 28 debate at Cameron University in Lawton. Candidates Gentner Drummond, Chip Keating, Charles McCall and Mike Mazzei qualified for the debate based on their performance in a recent poll. [The Frontier] | [NonDoc]
Federal housing cuts could put 30,000 Oklahomans at risk, advocates warn: Forty-eight thousand Oklahomans faced eviction in 2024. Housing advocates say that number will grow significantly if the Trump administration succeeds in dismantling the two federal programs keeping the state’s most vulnerable residents housed. [The Journal Record]
Weekly What’s That
The minimum wage is the lowest wage per hour that may be paid by law to most employees in most jobs. The U.S. federal government first adopted a national minimum wage in 1938 as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act, and it has been raised by Congress over twenty times since then.
The federal minimum wage was set as $7.25 per hour effective July 2009. As of 2025, the federal minimum wage has remained unchanged for over 16 years, the longest stretch ever without an increase. By 2022, the minimum wage had lost over 27 percent of its value when adjusted for inflation. If the minimum wage had kept pace with both inflation and productivity growth, it would have risen to around $23 to $24 per hour in 2025, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
As of 2025, Oklahoma is one of just 20 states that has a minimum wage set at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Meanwhile, 30 states and D.C., including four of Oklahoma’s neighbors (Arkansas, Missouri, New Mexico and Colorado), have set a higher minimum wage; in all but two of these 30 states, the minimum wage is above $10 per hour. In addition, 67 cities have set a local minimum wage higher than their state minimum. However, the Oklahoma Legislature in 2014 passed a preemption law prohibiting municipalities from setting their own minimum wage.
In 2024, an initiative petition campaign, SQ 832, gathered more than enough signatures for a ballot measure to raise Oklahoma’s minimum wage incrementally to $15/hr by 2030, followed by automatic annual increases tied to the Consumer Price Index. Signatures for SQ 832 were not certified far enough in advance to qualify for the November 2024 general election; in September 2024, Gov. Stitt signed an Executive Order to delay a vote on SQ 832 until the June 2026 primary election.
Some employees may be paid less than the minimum wage, also known as the subminimum wage. For example, an employer in Oklahoma may pay an employee who receives tips as little as $2.13 an hour in direct wages if that amount plus the tips received are at least equal to the federal minimum wage, the employee retains all tips, and the employee customarily and regularly receives more than $30 a month in tips. Employers may also gain authorization to pay subminimum wages to workers who have disabilities for the work being performed. Certain young workers and full-time student workers may also be paid less than the standard minimum wage.
Look up more key terms to understand Oklahoma politics and government here.
Quote of the Week
“A worker clocks 40 hours a week, does everything right and still has to rely on a government program to feed their kids. That’s not the system conservatives believe in. We believe a hard day’s work should be enough for a person to stand on their own two feet. Right now, in Oklahoma, it isn’t.”
– Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Leslie Osborn, who has spent 18 years in elected office as an Oklahoma Republican, writing about her support for State Question 832, which would raise the state’s minimum wage. [The Oklahoman]
- From OK Policy: SQ 832 Information and Resources
Op-Ed of the Week
Opinion, Oklahoma Labor Commissioner: SQ 832 is about conservative promise that work should pay
I’ve spent 18 years in elected office as an Oklahoma Republican. Ten of those years I spent in the state House, where I chaired the Appropriations Committee and wrote the state budget, and the last eight as your Republican labor commissioner. Throughout that time, I’ve fought for conservative principles: limited government, personal responsibility and the dignity of work. So when I tell you I’m voting Yes on State Question 832 to raise Oklahoma’s minimum wage, I want you to know it comes from those very principles.
Here’s what I learned chairing the House Appropriations Committee, where I was responsible for writing the state budget. When a person works full time and still can’t afford rent, groceries and gas, they don’t just disappear. They turn to public assistance like food stamps, Medicaid or supportive housing to help to fill the gap. And who pays for that public assistance? You do, we all do. Oklahoma taxpayers.
Think about what that really means. A worker clocks 40 hours a week, does everything right and still has to rely on a government program to feed their kids. That’s not the system conservatives believe in. We believe a hard day’s work should be enough for a person to stand on their own two feet. Right now, in Oklahoma, it isn’t.
This isn’t about big government. It’s about the opposite. It’s about letting people earn their own way without a handout. It’s about more than 200,000 Oklahoma children who’d have a parent bringing home a real paycheck. It’s about the conservative promise that work should pay.
I’ve spent nearly two decades in public service standing up for Oklahoma’s working families and for the taxpayers who fund our government. Voting Yes on 832 honors both. I hope you’ll join me. [Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Leslie Osborn / The Oklahoman]
Numbers of the Day
- $15,650 – The federal poverty threshold for annual earnings for a single, working adult. An Oklahoman working full time at the state’s minimum wage ($7.25 per hour) would earn $15,080 per year, which is would be below the official poverty threshold. [U.S. Health and Human Services]
- 14% – The percentage of Oklahoma City’s unhoused population who are 18 or younger, up from 12% in 2025. [2026 Point in Time Report]
- 91% – Property taxes represent 91% of local tax revenue for both Roger Mills and Beaver counties in Oklahoma. The property tax revenue in those counties are used for funding local public schools, county government, emergency medical services, and more. [Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy via OK Policy]
- $1.52 billion – Estimated loss of local funding for essential community services if State Question 843, which would eliminate property taxes in Oklahoma, is enacted. The measure, referred to voters by the Legislature, is currently being challenged before the Oklahoma Supreme Court. State estimates indicate that Oklahoma public schools would see a $1.03 billion reduction in local funding from the loss of property tax revenue. [Oklahoma Tax Commission]
- -2% – Oklahoma’s community supervision rate was 1,246 per 100,000 residents in 2009 and declined 2% (to 1,225) in 2024. [Prison Policy Institute]
What We’re Reading
- Myths vs. facts about the minimum wage: Since the 1938 enactment of the federal minimum wage as a core pillar of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), policymakers in Congress and later in dozens of states, cities, and counties, have adopted hundreds of minimum wage policies—setting wage floors across and within industries, at varying levels of geography (national, state, and local), and applying in different ways to different groups of workers and employers. This abundance of experience across a wide range of jurisdictions and industries has provided ample opportunity to understand how minimum wage policies—and the failure to adjust them—affect workers, employers, and the economy. Debates surrounding the minimum wage have also generated consistent and pervasive myths about the policy. These are the facts. [Economic Policy Institute]
- Report: Youth Homelessness Overview: Each year, an estimated 4.2 million youth, young adults and teens experience homelessness in the United States, 700,000 of which are unaccompanied minors—meaning they are not part of a family or accompanied by a parent or guardian. These estimates indicate that approximately one in 10 adults ages 18 to 25, and one in 30 youth ages 13 to 17 will experience homelessness each year. This is likely an undercount due to varying definitions of homelessness and challenges with contacting unhoused people, particularly unhoused youth. [National Conference of State Legislatures]
- Eliminating property taxes would devastate crucial local services: Property values have increased nationally since the pandemic, leading to higher property taxes. This has created a financial strain on some lower- and middle-income households. The need for effective solutions is real, but eliminating property taxes – as some state legislators are pushing – isn’t the answer. In Oklahoma, property taxes account for 56 percent of local tax revenue and fund critical services like fire response, law enforcement, emergency responders, trash collection, libraries, and schools. Without property taxes, counties, municipalities, and school districts would have to depend on the state to fund core services – and that money often shifts with politics. [Aanahita Irani Ervin & Sabine Brown / OK Policy]
- Toward Fairer, More Equitable Property Taxes: Local public services are cornerstones of our communities, ensuring that our children are educated, our communities are safe and healthy, and public spaces like parks and libraries can be enjoyed by all. Unfortunately, local governments’ ability to provide these services is under threat as state legislators across the country have called for inequitable and costly across-the-board property tax cuts under the guise of addressing housing affordability. Most of the proposals this year have failed to benefit those most impacted by affordability — low-income homeowners and renters — while restricting the ability of local officials to raise the revenue they need to support their communities. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities]
- Probation and parole trends by state: A look back at the data on ‘alternatives’ to incarceration: Community supervision represents the largest segment of the criminal legal system and, much like incarceration, it is almost entirely a state- and locally-run enterprise. On an average day, around 3.5 million people are on probation or parole compared to 2 million people who are incarcerated. To put this into perspective, that means more people are on parole than are in local jails nationwide, and people on probation make up more than half of all people under correctional control of any kind. [Prison Policy Institute]
