The raise that Nebraska's minimum wage workers will see in 2023 will be the first since 2016, when the state minimum wage rose from $8 an hour to $9.
"Local businesses like mine depend on local spending," said Cinnamon Dokken, the owner of A Novel Idea Bookstore in Lincoln."The last time Nebraska increased the minimum wage, our revenues grew and we raised our wages. We look forward to that again with the passage of Initiative 433. Raising the minimum wage will put more money in workers' pockets and foster the better job performance that is vital for small business competitiveness.
The minimum wage was also on the ballot elsewhere in the U.S. on Tuesday. In Washington, D.C., votersa ballot initiative that calls for raising the minimum wage for tipped workers from $5.35 per hour to $16.10 per hour by 2027. A ballot measure in Portland, Maine that proposed raising the city's minimum wage to $18 an hour and eliminating the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers was rejected by voters, a defeat campaigners attributed to an aggressive corporate misinformation effort.
"The National Restaurant Association, Uber, and DoorDash poured in hundreds of thousands of dollars to spread misinformation and lies, confusing workers and voters," Saru Jayaraman, the president of One Fair Wage, said in a statement Wednesday."We will keep fighting to get One Fair Wage in Maine, especially now with inflation making it hard for people to survive."