A group backed by unions and faith-based organizations wants to ask voters to raise the minimum wage over the next few years. The Ohio Organizing Collaborative wants the minimum wage in Ohio to go up to $10 per hour in 2017 and scale up to $12 per hour by 2021.
Director Kirk Noden says that their polling shows widespread support for a higher minimum wage.
“Ohioans are a cautious, pragmatic electorate, but I think if you were to put $10 per hour on the ballot, that polls at more than 70 percent," Noden says. "People who would pass that easily.”
Even so, the group is being cautious. They’re collecting signatures for an issue on next year’s ballot, but they have a multi-year plan to raise the minimum wage first in Columbus and Cincinnati.
If the statewide issue fails next year, they already have plans to try again in 2018.
