Michigan Supreme Court Ruling to Raise Minimum Wage in the State

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that legislators had unconstitutionally subverted a voter-sponsored proposal to raise the state’s minimum wage.

As a result of the 4-to-3 ruling, labor groups expect Michigan’s hourly minimum wage of $10.33 to increase by at least $2 in February, once the state treasurer calculates inflation adjustments. There will be subsequent cost-of-living increases through 2029.

In addition, tipped workers, who currently can be paid as little as $3.84 per hour, will be subject to the same minimum as all other workers by 2029, putting Michigan on a path to be the eighth state to establish a standard wage floor for all workers.

Labor activists and union groups celebrated the Michigan court’s decision.

“We have finally prevailed over the corporate interests who tried everything they could to prevent all workers, including restaurant workers, from being paid a full, fair wage with tips on top,” Saru Jayaraman, the president of One Fair Wage, a national nonprofit organizing group, said in a statement.

Her group is directly cited in the case because of its involvement in gathering the necessary signatures from Michiganders in 2018 to invoke the ballot initiative and send the proposal to the Legislature, which Republicans led at the time.

To prevent the wage increase proposal from reaching the 2018 general election ballot, a large cohort of restaurateurs — led by the Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association — pushed the Legislature to simply adopt the proposal sponsored by One Fair Wage and other groups, which the Legislature did. Legislators then rolled back the law’s provisions after the election.