Budget & Tax

SQ 832: National costs, local consequences

July 28, 2025

Curtis Shelton

A new Oklahoma ballot proposal, State Question 832, would significantly increase the state’s minimum wage by tying it to the cost of living in expensive urban areas. The measure is on the ballot on June 16, 2026.

Let us imagine that this ballot proposal would have passed, say, 10 years ago. If that were the case, Oklahoma would now have the highest minimum wage in the country.

SQ 832 has a series of static increases in the minimum wage that would bring the minimum wage to $15 over five years. After that, the minimum wage is subject to increases based on the U.S. Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. If this had passed in 2015, Oklahoma’s minimum wage would be $19.04 today, a 112 percent increase.

Tying Oklahoma’s minimum wage to national cost-of-living changes that are wildly different from Oklahoma’s economic environment would be a huge blow to low-income workers and small businesses in our state. In their analysis of the employment effects of minimum wages, David Neumark and Peter Shirley wrote: “In its totality, this body of evidence and its conclusions point strongly toward negative effects of minimum wages on employment of less-skilled workers.” 

Oklahoma has long had a lower-than-average labor participation rate, and reduced access to work will only exacerbate that problem.

A majority of the research continues to show that minimum-wage increases result in adverse effects for the very people the policy aims to help. With the ever-increasing use of technology to replace more complex jobs, a 112 percent increase in the cost of labor would further incentivize that trend.

Oklahoma currently has the lowest cost of living in the nation, according to the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC). SQ 832 would put that at risk by forcing Oklahoma to share in the effects of the failed policies in places like New York and California.