Colorado Families for a Fair Wage, the campaign supporting the amendment to gradually raise the minimum wage to $12 by 2020, recently rolled out new ads arguing the current minimum wage can’t keep up with the state’s cost of living.
The campaign against Amendment 70, led by Keep Colorado Working, launched an ad drawing attention to the fact that when Colorado voted to raise it’s minimum wage in 2006, it also required that the wage be raised each year to keep up with inflation. It says that’s a sufficient increase.
The new ads from the initiative’s advocates point out, however, that the minimum wage only increased by 8 cents last year, which they say isn’t enough to keep up with Colorado’s rising cost of living.
Opponents of the initiative also say a minimum wage increase would have unintended consequences, like an increase in unemployment. Tyler Sandberg of Keep Colorado Working told The Denver Post Amendment 70 would force businesses “to lay off the very low-wage worker this is supposed to help.”
The ad challenges this claim as well, nodding to the success of similar measures in places like San Francisco and Washington D.C. and the body of evidence suggesting wage increases don’t cost jobs.
The ads also cite support from Colorado business owners and Gov. John Hickenlooper.
