The recent referendum on the minimum wage had some notable results.
California’s proposal to gradually raise the minimum wage to $18 an hour by 2026 was defeated by a narrow vote of 51% to 49%. Opponents and supporters have raised a combined $1.8 million in war chests against the issue, the lowest amount of any proposal on Californians’ ballots this year, according to the Sacramento Bee. It is said that If this bill had passed, California would have tied with Hawaii for the highest general minimum wage of any state.
Since 1994, every state referendum on the minimum wage has been passed, even in red states such as South Dakota and Nebraska. For example, in recent elections, Missouri had the following results:
Missouri voters agreed, 58% to 42%, to set the minimum wage at $13.75 an hour by next year, then increase it by $1.25 per year until it reaches $15 an hour in 2026.
Please note that the cost of living in California is much higher than in Missouri. So what explains California’s vote?
Several factors are likely at play.
Voters remain angry about high inflation. Shoppers are frustrated that tipping is spreading to more and more industries. California has a separate $20 minimum wage for fast food workers. Most voters are older and remember working for less money when they were younger, including adjusting for inflation.
But it’s probably not just anger over high prices. California’s rent control proposal also failed, by a much larger margin, nearly 60-40. I suspect that California’s election results partly reflect a backlash against progressivism.
When I was young, California was a red state. The passage of Proposition 13 in 1978 reduced property tax increases. In 1988, California voted for Bush, but Massachusetts liberal Mike Dukakis won Iowa by 10 points. In 1994, voters passed Proposition 187, which prohibited California from providing public services to illegal aliens. That same year, voters passed the Three Strikes Act, which mandated long prison terms (25 years to life) for three felony convictions, even if the third conviction was for a relatively minor crime. Approved. Proposition 13 remains in effect, but other proposals were later watered down.
Over time, red states often turn blue, and vice versa. There’s a good chance West Virginia will be blue and Vermont red in a few decades. In fact, West Virginia was blue when I was young, and Vermont was one of only two states to vote Republican in 1936.
Minimum wage and rent control aren’t the only areas where California voters have moved to the right.
California voters passed Proposition 36, which increased penalties for retail theft and drug trafficking, but rejected Proposition 6, which would have paid people in prison for their labor and abolished any form of slavery.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, progressive Oakland Mayor Shen Tao and Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price were also on the ballot. San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston, a Democratic Socialist, lost the election.
In Los Angeles, Prosecutor George Gascón was ousted by candidate Nathan Hockman, who promised to be a more law-and-order district attorney.
I wasn’t surprised by the vote on criminal justice issues because there’s a lot of anger here over increases in crimes like shoplifting. But I was mildly (and pleasantly) surprised by the shift in voter sentiment toward interventionist economic policies. Let’s see if this is the start of a new trend. California’s Proposition 13 sparked a tax revolt that led to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
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