Rate increases to $8.55

Come Jan. 1, Ohio’s lowest paid workers will get a bit of an increase.

The state’s minimum wage will increase by a quarter an hour, raising it from $8.30 to $8.55 for non-tipped employees and increased from $4.15 to $4.30 for tipped employees.

“Ohio citizens voted to increase our state minimum wage in 2006, and every year workers are helped by that forward-thinking move,” said Michael Shields, researcher at Policy Matters Ohio. “Inflation-adjustment preserves the value of the minimum wage.”

Policy Matters Ohio said that Ohio’s new minimum wage would be worth just 72 percent of what the federal minimum wage was worth in 1968, $11.83 in today’s dollars.

In 2006, Ohio voters passed a constitutional amendment that the minimum wage would increase every year to counteract inflation

According to The Ohio Manufacturer’s Association, the state minimum wage is tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI-W) for urban wage earners and clerical workers for the 12-month period prior to September. This CPI-W index increased by 2.9 percent over the twelve-month period from Sept. 1, 2017, to Aug. 31, 2018

The automatic adjustment, which takes place every Jan. 1 is a critical safeguard that prevents the minimum wage from losing value over time because of inflation.

“The inflation adjustment keeps Ohio workers from fallling further behind,” Shields said. “Moving forward, Ohio should put in place an increase beyond inflation to reflect our workforce’s improved productivity and get us back toward where wages once were. Stay tuned for analysis of how a stronger minimum wage could help Ohio workers more.”