Guest opinion: It’s past time to act on minimum wage in Boulder

Thursday, Aug. 31, 2023

By Geof Cahoon

Boulder Beat readers had a lot of Thoughts on city council’s recent vote to wait until 2025 to raise the local minimum wage. If you’ve got something to add to the conversation, let us know: boulder.beat.editorial@gmail.com

The local minimum wage has been a point of discussion across Boulder County since 2019. In September 2022, the Boulder County Consortium of Cities formed a Local Wage Study Team where they developed a timeline for a minimum wage to go into effect in January 2024. The Local Wage Study Team invited the business community to a meeting with local elected officials. In April 2023, advocates invited local elected officials to hear from impacted workers, community leaders and policy experts.

Despite the fact that this has been a topic of discussion over the last four years, monied interests continue to levy delay tactics to prevent a minimum wage increase from happening at all. Meanwhile, over the last four years, members of our community have struggled to make ends meet as evidenced by the growing number of food-pantry visits, rising family homelessness, and an unprecedented level of inflation.

During a study session on Thursday, August 24, Boulder City Council members discussed whether to implement a minimum wage increase of $15.70 beginning on January 1, 2024. This was an opportunity for the City of Boulder to join Boulder County Commissioners — who recently announced their commitment to increasing the minimum wage in unincorporated parts of the County. Instead, in a 5-4 vote, members of Boulder City Council voted against working families and in favor of yet another year-long delay.

This comes after years of campaign-trail promises to raise the minimum wage. During candidate forums in 2021, several council members — including Tara Winer, Mark Wallach and Matt Benjamin — stated their support of raising the minimum wage to at least $15/hr. More recently, during a June candidate forum, Council members Bob Yates and Winer shared their support of increasing the minimum wage to at least $17.29 an hour.

Thursday’s decision is especially disappointing given the previous statements made by these elected leaders. Kicking this process down the line hurts working families who are struggling to keep up with the rising cost of living in the City of Boulder. Getting an initial minimum wage increase off the ground sooner rather than later is the first step for cities to pursue a gradual wage target that allows working people and working families to be better supported to make ends meet.

For years, community members have been calling on local governments to act now to implement a local minimum wage to address the fact that Boulder County has one of the highest costs of living in the state. Local minimum wage laws are designed to address this.

For the last four years, elected leaders have failed to take action to put something in place. The time to act is now. We need to hold Boulder City Council members accountable to their past campaign promises by electing leaders who will really follow through on enacting a self sustaining minimum wage.

Want to engage more on this? Attend an Oct. 12 town hall on the issue in Niwot (5:30 p.m., Left Hand Grange, 195 2nd Ave) or the county commissioners’ planned public hearing and vote on Nov. 2. Learn more.

Geof Cahoon is president of the Boulder Area Labor Council, CLC, AFL-CIO, which is advocating for higher minimum wages. 

Elections Opinion Bob Yates Boulder Area Labor Council Boulder County candidates city council city of Boulder commissioners economy election minimum wage Tara Winer wages working families