Under State Question 832, the minimum wage in Oklahoma will more than double to $15 an hour by 2029 and then continue rising at a rapid pace every year thereafter.

The money for those raises has to come from somewhere, and experts agree consumers will ultimately foot much of the bill. They warn SQ 832 will make Oklahoma more closely resemble the nation’s highest cost-of-living states instead of remaining among the most affordable in the country.

“By inflating wages, you then inflate prices more to help pay for the higher wages,” David Bahnsen, chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group, noted in a May interview on the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs’ “Thinkin’ on Lincoln” podcast. “You create a negative feedback loop that is inherently inflationary. The solution to higher prices is not higher prices.”

SQ 832 would mandate continual annual increases in Oklahoma’s minimum wage based on increases in the cost of living in the nation’s largest urban centers, as measured by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. That would effectively mandate wage levels far above market rates in Oklahoma, based on the cost of living in places like New York City or San Francisco.

As a result, while SQ 832 would initially mandate that entry-level jobs pay $15 an hour in 2029, the wage mandate would rapidly escalate. An analysis by The State Chamber of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Farm Bureau found SQ 832 would put Oklahoma’s minimum wage on a fast track to $35.61 per hour and continue rising thereafter.

When the Employment Policies Institute, a nonprofit research organization, commissioned a survey of 166 American economists in March and April, the survey found that 74 percent of surveyed economists opposed a $15 an hour minimum wage, while 90 percent opposed a $20 an hour minimum wage, and 96 percent opposed a minimum wage of more than $20 an hour.

The survey showed that 59 percent of surveyed economists believe a $15 an hour minimum wage will increase consumers’ cost of living. If the minimum wage is boosted above $20 an hour, as SQ 832 would soon require, 84 percent of economists believe surging costs are likely—with 42 percent predicting an above-$20 wage mandate will increase consumer costs “significantly.”

In California, which already has an SQ 832-style wage law in place, the annual cost of groceries is $6,586 annually, compared to $5,793 for the same products in Oklahoma today.

The Minimum Wage Facts and Analysis website, maintained by the Employment Policies Institute, noted in January that advocates often say higher minimum wages are “a way to help workers keep pace with rising prices. Yet according to the most recent consumer price index data, there is a clear positive trend between higher minimum wage mandates and the rising cost of food, housing, and transportation.”

In 2023, the site noted that the five states with the highest minimum wages were all among the top 10 states for the highest cost of living. In contrast, the states with the lowest cost of living all had their minimum wage set at the federal rate of $7.25 per hour.

Similarly, 2025 data showed that cities such as Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York City—which all had minimum wage rates above $16—also had “significantly higher cost of living compared to cities with lower mandates, like Atlanta, Dallas, and Miami.”

Supporters of SQ 832 argue for rapid inflation of Oklahoma’s minimum wage because of the general inflation that has occurred since the start of the Biden Administration in 2021. But Bahnsen noted, “If you inflate wages and then that leads to an inflation of prices, what we call that is ‘more inflation.’”

That means those working for minimum wage will see outsized harm from the inflation created by the side effects of the dramatic escalation of wages.

“It’s a tremendous fallacy to believe that wage earners and consumers are two different people,” Bahnsen said.

Some businesses will have more pricing power than others, meaning those businesses can more easily hike prices to cover increased labor costs. Bahnsen cited Starbucks as an example, since its customers are already used to paying a premium for coffee that can be purchased cheaper elsewhere.

But other companies provide goods or services to customers who are more price-sensitive, meaning those businesses will have to find other ways to address the added cost, Bahnsen noted. That can translate into increased automation, reduced hours for workers receiving a higher hourly wage, the loss of benefits, and similar strategies.

But even in those scenarios, at least a share of the added cost of labor will appear in rising prices for consumers, and price increases are most likely for basic necessities.

“Some sectors and some companies have more pricing power than others do,” Bahnsen said. “But in low-cost, consumer goods that are largely staples, that are necessary, that are very heavily bought and low-price items—cheeseburgers, coffee, candy bars, toilet paper, toothpaste—I’m sorry, but those companies are going to, because they can, pass on that impact.”

In some cases, companies will increase prices and profit margins while also downsizing their workforces, a trend that is already underway in some corporate chains and that will likely accelerate in Oklahoma if SQ 832 becomes law.

Bahnsen noted the number of hourly employees at McDonald’s in 2025 totaled about 150,000 nationwide. In contrast, the company had around 205,000 hourly employees in 2019, meaning the company reduced its national workforce by roughly 55,000 over those six years, even as McDonald’s maintained or expanded overall profit margins.

Bahnsen said the high minimum wage imposed by SQ 832 will increase the incentive for companies to be more aggressive in pursuing similar strategies in the future in Oklahoma. Furthermore, because the financial pressures imposed on smaller competitors by SQ 832 may cause many of those small businesses to close their doors or become less competitive with larger companies, SQ 832 creates an environment where larger corporate businesses may be able to raise prices more aggressively than would occur otherwise in an environment with more business competition.

“The higher wages are going to be paid by the customers of the business,” Bahnsen said. “And that is a permanent law of economics that can’t be repealed.”