Petition Effort to Boost Michigan Minimum Wage Moves Closer to Collecting Signatures

The initiative campaign to increase Michigan’s minimum wage took another step Tuesday toward putting a question on the 2022 ballot.

The Raise the Wage Michigan campaign filed with state elections officials a summary of its proposal that will appear on the petition form. The campaign will also file a copy of the petition form, but that will come later.

The initiative would raise the state minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2027, says campaign attorney Mark Brewer.

“First and foremost, it’s to raise the minimum wage in Michigan for all workers to $15 an hour by 2027, and that will be done in $1 increments beginning in 2023,” he said.

It would also index the minimum wage to inflation.

“That’s been a real problem with the minimum wage – no inflationary increases over the years,” he said.

The initiative would also set the same minimum wage for tipped and untipped workers.

Republicans in the Legislature circumvented a similar effort in 2018 by adopting a similar petition initiative instead of letting it go to the ballot and then amending it with a more modest minimum wage increase.