$15 Minimum Wage In Pima County Doesn't Seem Likely Anytime Soon

TUCSON, AZ — The passage of Proposition 206 in the city of Tucson will mean inconsistency between minimum wages in the city and in Pima County.

But it doesn't appear that changes to the minimum wage in the county will happen anytime soon after the Pima County Board of Supervisors discussed the issue earlier this week.

Some supervisors agreed that the state minimum wage of $12.15 was too low, but most were not willing to take on the responsibility of increasing the county minimum wage through a simple board vote.

Adelita Grijalva, the board's vice chair, brought the issue up for a second time this year after Proposition 206 passed easily in the city of Tucson in the Nov. 2 election.

Proposition 206 will increase the city's minimum wage to $13 per hour in April, with incremental increases after that until the minimum wage reaches $15 per hour at the start of 2025.

This new city law means that neighbors could be paid differently for the same job if one happens to live within city limits and the other lives outside them. Businesses with operations both inside and outside Tucson may end up paying workers different wages for the same work.

"We really should come up with a regional approach on how to accomplish this for our county,” Grijalva said. "I think we really need to look to what we think is a livable wage in our community, and what we’re seeing isn’t."

Supervisor Matt Heinz agreed that it was time to bring a consistent minimum wage to the rest of Pima County. It would be important to bring in business leaders and other stakeholders to develop a plan for how to move forward, he added.

The county's minimum wage is currently the same as the state's — $12.15 per hour, with an increase to $12.80 per hour slated for the start of 2022.

Local business leaders and chambers of commerce came out adamantly against Tucson's minimum wage plan, which included the creation of a new city office to ensure businesses abide by the new law.

Supervisor Rex Scott said he fully supported an increase in the local minimum wage but did not believe the supervisors should be the ones making the decision.

“Three people should not be making a decision that would impact a million people,” he said.

Scott pointed out that the Tucson City Council declined to vote to increase the minimum wage itself and instead waited for voters to decide the issue in the Nov. 2 election. Pima County should do the same, he said.

There's already a local organization that is likely willing to do the work of getting a minimum wage question on the ballot in an upcoming Pima County election, he said. Tucson's Fight for $15 group championed the campaign for an increased minimum wage in the city.

“It would be completely inappropriate for us to take that action instead of moving it toward a public debate,” Scott said.

Supervisor Steve Christy opined that Pima County must take into account the needs of the business community when considering a minimum wage increase, something that Tucson did not do, he said.

“My biggest concern is the bureaucracy that we have seen with the city of Tucson,” Christy said, referring to the new city agency, the Department of Labor Standards, which is meant to police local businesses' adherence to the new minimum wage law.

Christy called the city's line allowing people to report violations of the law a “snitch line” that would allow people to “tattletale” on businesses.

“I think that’s a very dangerous and unjust approach,” he said.

Grijalva agreed that replicating the city's approach to implementing a new minimum wage might not be the best plan for the county and suggested asking local business owners and organizations to weigh in on how to move forward.

Getting a minimum wage issue on the ballot in an upcoming election would be a lengthy and expensive process, she said, while people living in poverty need higher wages now.