While Kristi Noem promises to stop taking money out of your pocket at the grocery store if only you’ll let her keep using the state plane, she says nothing to celebrate another great Democratic idea that has been putting more money in workers’ pockets since 2015: South Dakota’s inflation-indexed minimum wage!
Underneath Noem’s noisy campaign promise yesterday, the Department of Labor and Regulation yesterday tersely announced that South Dakota’s minimum wage will rise from $9.95 to $10.80 an hour on January 1. That 8.5% increase is the largest indexed boost to the state minimum wage since voters approved Initiated Measure 18 in 2014. IM 18 (now codified into multiple statutes in SDCL Chapter 60-11] raised the minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50 at the beginning of 2015, then began applying annual inflation adjustments in 2016 (see SDCL 60-11-3.2). This next increase will bring the average annual increase in the minimum wage since 2015 to 3.0%.
IM 18 also raised the minimum wage for tipped employees to half of the regular minimum wage. Restaurateurs and anyone else taking advantage of the lower tipped wage will have to raise their minimum pay from $4.975 to $5.40 an hour. Employers still have to top off their workers’ wage to the regular minimum wage each pay period if their tips don’t get them to that level (this provision existed before IM 18; see SDCL 60-11-3.1).
As on broader measures of worker well-being, South Dakota’s minimum wage will remain in the middle of the national pack, with at least 22 states offering better minimum wages come January 1. We will beat Minnesota, which is increasing its minimum wage only 2.5%, from $10.33 to $10.59 for large-employers and from $8.42 to $8.63 for most everyone else.
Bust your chops for 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, and at South Dakota’s new minimum wage, you’ll make $21,600 a year. Put in 11 hours of overtime each week, and if the boss gives you time and a half, you’ll crack $30K.
Not many South Dakota workers will get a raise directly from this increase. According to 2020 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 98% of South Dakota’s hourly workers were already making more than minimum wage. But the minimum wage hike exerts upward pressure on wages among the bottom quintile of workers and thus chips away at wage inequality.
Plus, increasing the minimum wage has a nice feminist bent, as over 70% of the workers making minimum wage in South Dakota are women.
Kristi Noem has been generally quiet about the minimum wage throughout her career. Back in 2014, she resisted President Barack Obama’s call to increase the federal minimum wage, saying that letting states decide their own minimum wages is “the right approach.” Voters that year took Noem up on her lazy states’ rights line and set in motion the minimum wage increases that will finally bring every hourly worker to four figures an hour in 2023.
My union shop Minnesota employer provided me with a 20% wage increase this year. Oh, and a new company truck. Thanks.
It’s hard to know how even $11 an hour would slow the drain of brains during the coming strings of below zero days and the endless hours driving on blizzard-packed roads. But that’s freedom in Mrs. Noem’s little slice of perpetual welfare state heaven right?
What all of you should be asking is WTF were we thinking electing Joe Biden???? INFLATION INFLATION INFLATION
This piece from Pew predicts the wage gap and who is at the bottom of the scale.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/23/key-facts-about-u-s-latinos-for-national-hispanic-heritage-month/
Steve: I hope other contributors will say this more eloquently than I, but INFLATION INFLATION INFLATION is not the most important issue in the United States today. I’m impoverished (I’m feckin’ poor) and I’m not crazy happy about INFLATION INFLATION INFLATION, but I know how to make do or do without.
A multitude of factors, primarily corporate greed, has and is causing inflation. WTF was I thinking when I voted Biden/Harris? Well, Steve, I and seven million more voters than those whom voted for thief, liar, rapist, racist, misogynistic, paranoid, stupid, wh*re-hopper, and narcissistic Hump were disgusted, revolted, embarrassed, and pissed at Hump and his fellators and voted for a decent man and his brilliant vice president. It’s considered a crime and in bad taste to kill this vermin, so we voted his flabby *ss out.
Gosh, I hope that long sentence didn’t lose you. There are more important issues than inflation.
Thank you, Cory, for your hard work on the ballot votes that made these inflation adjustments to minimum wage happen in South Dakota!
Wow Bonnie, I could not have said it any better. You left nothing out. Standing ovation!!!!
Thank you, M.
I’m standing up with you, M.
BB Fairbanks-I loved how you used ‘rapist’ in there. That deet gets left out way too often when listing that orange bag of dix’s attributes. So does the fact we do have a brilliant VP. I got choked up with pride just reading her cv on her WIKI page. She has worked her butt off for the people, ladies especially, and made truly felt impacts throughout her young career. She is a badass little number. And so are you.
Thank you, All Mammal.
According to the magatsphere, Kamala Harris only claim to fame is sleeping her way to the top. with Willie Brown, if memory serves.