LANSING—The Michigan Supreme Court said Wednesday it will hear a major case involving changes to the state’s minimum wage and paid sick leave laws, as well as the power of lawmakers to interfere with the results of citizen-led petition drives to amend state laws.
And depending on how the court rules, their decision could help put more money into the pockets of low-wage workers across Michigan—especially those in the restaurant industry.
The current minimum hourly wage in Michigan is $10.10, up from $9.87 last year and $9.65 in 2021. For tipped employees like bartenders and servers, it’s $3.75. Employees who are 16 and 17 years old can be paid less—85% of the minimum wage, or $8.59 an hour this year.
More than 280,000 Michiganders signed a petition in 2018 to raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2022, followed by annual inflation adjustments, and eliminating a lower tipped wage. That was enough for the initiative to become law by a simple majority vote of the Legislature.
But in Michigan, there’s an odd little nuance in the state Constitution that allows state lawmakers to get the first crack at any citizen-initiated changes to state laws before they go onto the books.
That’s exactly what happened here.
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