Ohio has recently announced that they will be raising their minimum wage earnings by 10 cents per hour.

This new minimum wage will be for non-tipped workers of Ohio. The tipped workers will still be earning their wage of $4.35 per hour. And as for Ohio workers under the age 16, their earnings will still stay at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

Each year, Ohio’s minimum wage rises to keep up with inflation because of a constitutional amendment that was implemented in 2007. At that time our minimum wage was $6.85, which is nearly two dollars less than it is now.  That is a good amount to go up in over 14 years, but is it enough to help low-income Ohioans during this pandemic?

According to Michael Shields, a researcher with Policy Matters Ohio, it will not be enough. There have been several past bills that had a go at raising our minimum wage significantly, but they didn’t get any progress after being introduced. The ideas were simply thrown to the side. It can be said that this new minimum wage might be Ohio’s way of playing it safe because this won’t change too much.

When asked about what he thinks about the new minimum wage, Anthony Adkins, a senior at Lakewood High school, said, “I have been a minimum wage worker for about a year now and it hasn’t been the greatest and I was hoping that the new minimum wage would be higher because 10 cents simply isn’t enough.”

This new minimum wage might seem like a step in the right direction, but actually to most it seems like a disappointment. Hopefully a bigger change will be made soon to help with what has been lost due to this pandemic.