Senate Bill 146 would raise Ohio state minimum wage to $15 hour in a few years

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — A move is underway at the Ohio Statehouse to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Late Wednesday afternoon, the Senate Workforce and Higher Education Committee held its first hearing on Senate Bill 146.

Right now, Ohio's minimum wage is $10.10 an hour. If approved, the bill would gradually raise the minimum hourly wage starting January first of next year to $12 an hour until it eventually reaches that $15 mark in a few years.

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The proposal is getting mixed reviews in the community.

Michael Wilkos, Senior Vice President of the United Way of Central Ohio, said while it's a good start, it's going to take a lot more than that.

When you look at the Ohio Job and Family Services data, of the 25 jobs with the most openings in the state of Ohio right now, half of them pay less than $15 an hour. A living wage in Central Ohio -- how much you need to earn so you can afford food, medicine, and housing -- is already at $16.19 an hour for a single person," he said. "And for a single person with one child, it’s $35.10. So, even at $15 an hour, it’s very hard to make ends meet.

"Quite honestly no one’s paying the minimum wage," said John Barker, President of the Ohio Restaurant Association (ORA).

"The only people I see kind of making $12 or $13 an hour right now are kids, really those first jobs that kids have. Almost everyone is paying, based on the survey that we’re doing, about $14 as a starting wage."

Barker said while the ORA is keeping an eye on the bill, it's not really buying into it:

If you go to restaurants that are hiring more experienced people -- even our quick serve restaurants -- it’s about $17, $18 right now. So we’re really not a big proponent of having another bill to raise the minimum wage. The other piece to this is the elimination of the tip credit, which we think is a bad idea. Our servers in Ohio right now average $27 an hour getting their tips, so we want to make sure we preserve the tip.

Whether the bill has enough support to make it out of committee remains to be seen.