Fort Collins City Council again discussed raising the local minimum wage above the state level Tuesday night, and while the majority of council members want to move forward with a vote on the decision, council and city staff still haven’t come to a consensus on the target wage or an implementation schedule.
Currently, Fort Collins follows the state’s minimum wage — which is $12.56 an hour, or $9.54 an hour for tipped employees — but in 2019 the Colorado General Assembly passed a law allowing communities to set their own minimum wages above that level. Next year, following the consumer price index increase of 9%, the statewide minimum wage will increase to about $13.70.
On Tuesday night, city staff presented survey results from local workers and business owners regarding potential impacts of increasing the minimum wage. Perhaps expectedly, employees were more keen on the idea than employers.
Employees who took the survey — which asked for thoughts on the impacts of a $15 minimum wage — were overall supportive, though the open-ended section of the survey had comments both in favor and against raising the wages.
Many workers spoke about the need to address local housing costs, but those opposed to the raise felt that minimum wage isn’t meant to be a living wage and by artificially raising it, first-time and “unskilled” workers would be negatively impacted if employers respond by hiring fewer people and prioritizing more skilled workers.
When asked how increasing the minimum...
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