“Minimum-wage laws are about as clear a case as one can find of a measure the effects of which are precisely the opposite of those intended by the men of good will who support it.”

—Milton Friedman 

We’ve written at length about the adverse effects of the California-style minimum-wage structure proposed by State Question 832. If passed, it would mandate a rapid increase of the minimum wage to $15 an hour, but also mandate a never-ending escalator (based on the cost of living in big cities) to increase the minimum wage every year. Matt Oberdick, director of the Center for Culture and Family at OCPA, wrote a great piece discussing compassion and whether good intentions alone are sufficient justification for supporting SQ 832. In a nutshell, no, good intentions alone do not create good policy. 

In fact, if enough Oklahoma voters make the well-meaning “compassionate” vote, it will cause immense harm to those it purports to help. Job loss and/or reduced hours will result, and those who lose their jobs (or have hours significantly reduced) are those who can least afford to.  

We’ve seen this play out in states like California, Washington, and Oregon after a minimum-wage increase. Hours are reduced (leading to smaller paychecks), hiring slows (meaning fewer employment opportunities), and prices rise. These are, of course, not the sort of outcomes that “men of good will” wish to see. The question then arises: who continues pushing minimum-wage policies like SQ 832 and manipulating well-intentioned citizens into supporting them?  

According to Friedman, the strongest proponents of minimum-wage laws are not disinterested “men of good will,” but rather interested parties such as trade unions. A quick look at the finances for Raise the Wage Oklahoma bears this out. According to the Oklahoma Ethics Commission filings of Yes on SQ 832–Raise the Wage Oklahoma, those “interested parties” mostly consist of unions and left-wing billionaires.  

According to Ballotpedia, Tulsa billionaire Lynn Schusterman of the Schusterman Family Foundation has given $775,000 in support of SQ 832. According to their website, “Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies values diversity, equity, and inclusion in its employment practices, in the organizations it supports, and in all of its endeavors.” They are also working “… to advance racial, gender, and economic equity.”  

The Hopewell Fund, which Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers has accused of funneling foreign money into ballot efforts in Nebraska at the behest of Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, contributed $50,000. 

The National Education Association (NEA), which regularly supports all sorts of left-wing causes, has donated half a million dollars to support SQ 832. This is the same organization that advocated for taxpayer funding of abortion, advised teachers to hide information from parents regarding their students’ sexuality, opposed efforts to protect girls’ sports, locker rooms, and bathrooms from use by the opposite sex, and proposed removing police officers from schools in the name of racial justice.  

Other financial supporters include the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE). 

There are very real and very severe economic downsides to implementing a minimum-wage structure like that proposed in SQ 832, and yet these unions and left-wing billionaires are spending hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars to manipulate well-intentioned and compassionate Oklahomans into voting for it.

Do not be misled. Many of these donors aren’t pushing SQ 832 out of compassion, but purely their own self-interest.