The fight for a $15 minimum wage is gaining steam in the New Jersey Legislature. On May 26, 2016, the New Jersey Assembly passed Bill A15, which would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2021. Currently, the New Jersey State minimum wage is $8.38 per hour.
The $15 minimum wage would not get there all at once. Under the recently passed bill, the minimum wage first would increase to $10.10 per hour on January 1, 2017. Then, between 2018 and 2021, the minimum wage would increase by the greater of $1.25 an hour or $1.00 an hour plus the CPI each year. An identical version of the Assembly’s bill has already passed the New Jersey Senate’s Labor Committee (Bill S15). If the full Senate passes the bill it will head to the Governor’s desk where it most likely will be vetoed.
But the Governor’s veto may not be the end of the bill. The Legislature is proposing that in the event of a Governor veto, the bill be put to a constitutional referendum for the voters to decide during the New Jersey General Election on November 7, 2017. This would not be the first time the Legislature managed to get around a veto to increase the minimum wage. The minimum wage was previously raised by constitutional referendum in 2013 when voters amended the State’s Constitution to increase the minimum wage to $8.25 per hour despite a Governor Christie veto.
While the proposed $15 minimum wage may seem a long way away, employers should start thinking now about how this would affect their business. Many employers are still struggling from the more than 15% increase in the minimum wage over the last two years. An increase to just $10.10 in 2018 (which is when the increase would take effect if the bill is vetoed but then approved through referendum) would reflect another 20% increase, or an almost 40% increase since 2013. Such increased labor costs may be more than some employers can or are willing to absorb. For instance, Wendy’s recently stated it would replace some workers with automated machines in response to significant increases in minimum wage.
