Boulder City Council meets about minimum wage

The Boulder City Council met on Aug. 22 to discuss the feasibility of implementing a higher minimum wage to address concerns about wage equity from community members.

Colorado’s statewide minimum wage currently sits at $14.42, a wage that the cities and towns in Boulder County adhere to for its minimum wage workers. Unincorporated Boulder County’s minimum wage, however, is $15.69 an hour, and is scheduled to increase to $25 per hour by 2030.

The Emergency Family Assistance Association (EFAA), a non-profit focused on helping out struggling families in Boulder, put together a document in 2023 discussing the benefits of an increased minimum wage, which held plenty of statistical information regarding the impact a low minimum wage can have on Boulder workers and families.

“A family of 2 adults, 1 preschooler, and 1 school-aged child living in Boulder County would need 4 full time minimum wage jobs to meet their needs,” the document states.

In Niwot, the issue is especially controversial, with Tony Santelli (a former senior executive of IBM and former owner of the Niwot Tavern) making note in a previous statement to the Courier that a higher minimum wage could make Niwot “an endangered species” if the minimum wage is higher than surrounding cities.

Originally scheduled to commence in 2019 following the passing of a state law that gave local governments the right to set a minimum wage higher than the statewide minimum wage, discussions on the issue were interrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Five years later the pandemic has become endemic, and [Boulder County has] felt the numerous impacts to our economies including sharp increases in inflation, interest rates and the cost of living,” according to the City of Boulder website.

An economic study and several community input sessions have been completed regarding the possible impacts that increasing the minimum wage in Boulder County cities would have on its residents and workers. One such study has been led by the cities of Boulder, Erie, Louisville, Lafayette, and Longmont to explore the feasibility of implementing a higher minimum wage to address concerns from community members. The study and concerns from community members were discussed in a Boulder City Council meeting on Thursday, August 22, and the other four local governments will host similar conversations in subsequent weeks, with Longmont scheduled for Aug. 27, Lafayette for Sept. 3, Louisville for Sept. 10, and Erie for Sept. 17.

The council meeting opened up with a slideshow depicting the requirements for a local minimum wage adjustment, such as a 15% maximum annual increase, and an exclusion that is only applicable for certain groups such as contractors or unemancipated minors.

The presentation outlined the different pros and cons of a minimum wage increase in Boulder.

On the pro arguments, there was mention of how minimum wage could increase “human dignity,” how people could “afford basic needs amid rapidly increasing cost of living,” how folks “could afford to live and work in the same place,” and how an increased minimum wage could “reduce reliance on safety net services provided by public programs and non-profit partners [like EFAA].”

The cons of increasing the minimum wage were also presented, including how minimum wage should be viewed not necessarily as a “living/self-sufficiency wage but instead a training wage for youth and/or inexperienced workers,” how there could be a “risk of overpaying people who do not rely on the minimum wage to survive (minors, college students with family support, individuals using second jobs solely for additional income”), and how this increase could “disincentivize acquiring skills and education to get higher paying jobs.”

Following mention of the various perspectives on the issue, the council was presented several different wage increase scenarios, including:

• alignment with Colorado state-wide minimum wage increases

• alignment with Denver minimum wage increases

• an increase in minimum wage tied to unincorporated Boulder County, specifically, with one plan calling for a minimum wage increase to $25 by 2030 and the other calling for an increase to $21.10 by 2030.

Concerns from city council members were raised following a few more discussions, with some council members offering other possible solutions for a wage increase, which included a 15% increase in wages by 2025 and subsequent raises of 8.5% each in 2026 and 2027. The other option was to have even raises by 8% through 2027, with the minimum wage increasing after these dates with the Denver Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Following these proposed offers, the council requested staff to start drafting ordinances based on the two newly proposed increases and they preliminarily agreed to exclude independent contractors, introduce indexation by Denver CPI once the target wage was reached, and utilize the state’s enforcement mechanisms. The discussion about whether or not to exempt unemancipated minors was deferred to the session in which the two draft ordinances will be considered.

Council members will consider the draft minimum wage ordinances later this fall.