The Boulder City Council introduced a landmark ordinance to increase the city’s minimum wage starting in 2025 from the current minimum wage of $14.42 per hour.
If Boulder formally adopts the law, it would become one of the first municipalities in Colorado, joining communities like Denver and Edgewater, to set a local minimum wage independent of the state minimum wage. Local governments have been allowed to set their own local minimum wages since the 2019 state law was passed.
At the same time, the cost of living in Boulder rose, and wages did not continue to rise. The Colorado Law and Policy Center estimated that in 2022, a single childless adult would need to make at least $19.44 per hour to be able to afford to live in Boulder County.
Council members voted unanimously Thursday night for a minimum wage increase that would result in 8% annual increases in 2025, 2026 and 2027. The minimum wage will apply to all employees, including minors.
The vote came after dozens of community members testified at a public hearing. Speakers included minimum wage workers, representatives of community non-profit organizations, labor union representatives, and small business owners.
The workers who spoke said they had to work multiple jobs just to afford basic necessities like housing.
Sandra Manso Palma, who spoke in Spanish with the help of a translator, said she earns the minimum wage but it is not enough to support her family (she has a two-year-old child).
“We all need to be happy… and have everything we need to be able to live in peace and be able to support ourselves,” she said through the translator.
Caleb Robinson, a University of Colorado Boulder student who makes minimum wage at his job, said he needs to have the tools to work while going to school.
“I would like to give you guys a choice, a choice that I make. I can choose to allocate all my money to tuition, or I can choose to allocate my money to housing costs. But it’s important to express that I can’t do both,” he said.
Community advocates have also made impassioned calls for the city to increase the minimum wage in line with what other communities are doing. Unincorporated Boulder County increased its minimum wage by 15% in 2024 and will raise it to $25 an hour by 2030.
An 8% increase in 2025 is “inadequate” to meet the community’s needs, said Ashley Rumble, development director for the Emergency Family Assistance Association.
“The safety net, frankly, is struggling to keep up with demand. EFAA and our donors alone cannot take the place of fair wages. We need you to take action. I think it’s a matter of principle. “No one should work full time and still live in extreme poverty,” she said.
But many restaurant owners also chimed in, saying their employees are already paid fair wages, but increasing the minimum wage would destroy their businesses. Some also said they were concerned about unintended consequences.
“We treat our employees with respect. We pay them above average wages, and reward them for exceptional efforts,” said Pete Cross, owner of Infinitus Pie. “While the goal of the minimum wage is to ensure people earn a living wage, it has consequences “A realistic reality of fueling inflation, encouraging automation and discouraging would-be entrepreneurs from taking the risks of starting businesses.”
Supporters of increasing the minimum wage by 8% annually, such as Council Members Matthew Benjamin and Mark Wallach, have called the option a “compromise” between workers who say they struggle to pay their bills and small businesses, especially restaurants, that say they can. Can’t afford a big pay increase.
“The purpose of this proposal was largely to strike a balance. Clearly, we need to meet some of those basic needs of minimum wage workers in our community. There’s no doubt about that, and there’s no doubt that the needs are in “…But what we also have to balance is that…raising wages at such a steep rate will have immediate impacts on some of our small business owners.”
At Thursday’s public hearing on the minimum wage, the council remained closely divided on that approach. Although council members unanimously agreed in late August that they wanted to increase the city’s minimum wage in 2025, they were roughly split between two potential courses of action.
The approach of increasing pay by 8% each year in 2025, 2026 and 2027 was supported by five of the nine council members. The other four council members favored a different approach, originally proposed by Council Member Lauren Folkerts, which would have achieved a 15% minimum wage increase in 2025 followed by 8.5% increases in 2026 and 2027.
Folkerts said nonprofits are “helping close the gaps between wages and costs of living,” and that many groups have called for a wage increase of at least 15% in 2025. The organizations said they are “stressed” by the increasing demand for work. Their safety net services.
“An 8% increase every year for three years is not a compromise. It is an insult,” Folkerts said. “It is designed to muddy the waters so you can claim to support a minimum wage increase without taking the meaningful action that the community clearly demands.”
The so-called “Volkert amendment” failed on Thursday night when just under half of the council members backed it again. Folkerts, Mayor Aaron Brockett, Mayor Pro Tem Nicole Spear and Councilman Ryan Schuchard voted in favor of this option.
The minimum wage law will return to the Council for a second reading at a later time.
Originally published: October 10, 2024 at 10:26 p.m
