Hunter
07/02/21
As they have done since 2015, the Johnson County Board of Supervisors has announced their recommended minimum wage hike effective this month.
At their March 25th meeting this year, the Board recommended that the minimum wage in the county go up to $10.75 per hour.
Although the recommended wage is unenforceable under state law, it has continued as part of the Board’s initiative since they voted in September 2015 to begin phased minimum wage increases, due to the fact that the federal minimum wage hadn’t changed since 2009.
It was then that the board passed an ordinance establishing a Johnson County minimum wage, rising from the state minimum $7.25 an hour to $8.20 per hour on November 1 2015, to $9.15 on May 1 2016, and to $10.10 an hour by January 1 2017. The county had a higher minimum wage than the state for nearly a year and a half before then-governor Terry Branstad signed legislation eliminating the ability of jurisdictions in the state to set a minimum wage higher than the state’s.
The Supervisors have been recommending wage increases since then on an annual basis, using Consumer Price Index data to calculate the increases to keep up with inflation.
The US minimum wage in 1974 was $2 an hour. To keep up with inflation, the minimum should be $11.28 per hour in 2021, according to Dollar Times.com.