Michigan Supreme Court hears arguments that could raise minimum wage to $13

The Michigan Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday to increase the state’s minimum tipped wage.

The case is centered on a 2018 ballot initiative organized by Michigan One Fair Wage and Mothering Justice, the plaintiffs in the case. The initiative enabled the adoption of laws that could have wide-ranging effects on bar and restaurant workers by citizen-led petitions.

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One measure would increase the state minimum wage to $13.03 an hour and tipped worker wages to $11.73 per hour in 2023, and the other dealt with accruing paid sick leave. However, the Republican-led Michigan legislature adopted both bills and then amended them to increase the minimum wage to $12.05 per hour by 2030. Mothering Justice and One Fair Wage are arguing Republicans violated the people’s decision when they employed the adopt-and-amend process by adopting the laws and then overturning them in the same session.

In July 2022, the Michigan Court of Claims declared the adopt-and-amend process unconstitutional; however, before those changes went into effect, a lower court ruled that the action was allowed under the state constitution, affirming the legislature had the authority to amend both laws. A three-judge appellate court panel wrote the legislators’ motives “in passing legislation are irrelevant.”

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“Courts are concerned with what the law states, i.e., what the words actually contained in the law state, and a constitutional law does not become unconstitutional because it was passed with a bad intent,” Judge Christopher Murray wrote.

Because of that ruling, the amended law will increase workers’ wages to $10.33 an hour starting next year, with tipped workers earning $3.93 an hour. If the Supreme Court sides with the original language of the law, workers would see an increase to over $13 an hour regardless of tips.