Oklahoma Strips Cities of the Right to Pass Higher Wages, Sick Leave

[Lief 🗽]

How Christian of them!

[Lief 🗽]

It is sad, but not at all surprising, that people are basing their opinion here not on whether they think it is a good idea for such policies to be set at the local level, but whether they can get the policies they prefer more easily if they are set on the state level or the local level.

I wonder how many proponents here of letting local governments set minimum wages would still be proponents if those governments were wanting to lower the minimum wage to $5/hour or eliminate all requirements that employers offer even unpaid sick leave?

That isn't the same thing. If the state minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and a city wants to make their own minimum wage $8.00 an hour, they are still following state law (they're meeting the $7.25 an hour requirement and simply going above and beyond that). If they set it at $5.00 an hour, they would be in violation of state law and not meeting the minimum requirements.

A lower level of government is required to do what the higher level of government mandates. If it wants to do more, it can, but it cannot do less than the minimum that is required.

As for as home rule is concerned, what is the difference between a state allowing a local government to set a minimum wage lower than the default state minimum wage and it allowing a local government to set one higher than the state default?  In terms of the desirability of allowing the minimum wage to be set by local governments, there is absolutely no difference.

The only difference I can see that would lead you to prefer only allowing local governments to set higher minimum wages is that you prefer higher minimum wages and thus want to have as many levels of government as possible be able to set them higher.  But unless you are prepared for local governments to set lower minimum wages than the state minimum, or for that matter to allow state governments to set lower minimum wages than than the federal minimum, don't pretend for a second that you are an advocate of local decision making.  Instead, you're engaged in forum shopping for your preferred policy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_bottom