Proponents of State Question 832, which would dramatically and continually increase Oklahoma’s minimum wage, say the proposal will boost workers’ take-home pay, but data from employers in other states and academic research both show the wage increase could also result in the loss of health insurance benefits for many workers.

State Question 832 would raise Oklahoma’s minimum wage from $7.25 today to $15 by 2029 and then continue raising the mandate every year. The proposal would impose continual annual increases in Oklahoma’s minimum wage based on changes 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, which currently has a low cost of living, based on the high cost of living in places like New York City or San Francisco. An analysis by The State Chamber of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Farm Bureau found that SQ 832 could put Oklahoma’s minimum wage on a fast track to $35.61 per hour and more.

SQ 832 is similar to a law enacted in California that dramatically increased the minimum wage for fast-food employees to $20 an hour in April 2024.

One of the biggest concerns with higher minimum wage laws is that they result in fewer jobs for entry-level workers and fewer hours of work for those who do remain employed.

In a March 2022 National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, researchers reviewed all published academic research on the impact of minimum wage increases since 1992 and found there is “clear preponderance of negative estimates in the literature,” with 79.2 percent of the estimated employment elasticities negative, and 53.8 percent both negative and significant when the minimum wage is increased by 10 percent or more.

“In its totality, this body of evidence and its conclusions point strongly toward negative effects of minimum wages on employment of less-skilled workers, especially for the types of studies that would be expected to reveal these negative employment effects most clearly,” the paper stated.

That scenario played out in California.

A paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that employment in California's fast-food sector declined by 2.7 percent relative to employment in the fast-food sector elsewhere in the United States from September 2023 through September 2024. The median estimate translated into a loss of 18,000 jobs in California’s fast-food sector.

Similarly, in November 2024, the Employment Policies Institute found that the California wage law had reduced fast-food job opportunities and also hit customers’ pocketbooks. Menu prices surged as much as 10.1 percent from the law’s 2023 passage to April 2024.

But researchers also found that California employers were forced to reduce or eliminate worker benefits, such as health insurance, to offset the higher wage costs imposed by the new law.

A February 2025 paper from the Berkeley Research Group noted a survey of restaurant operators showed nearly 89 percent reduced employee hours to help offset increased costs, and that 35 percent of operators reduced supplemental employee benefits to offset the higher costs created by the wage law.

Academic research has also noted that reduced benefits often coincide with state or federally mandated wage increases.

In the Winter 2021 edition of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, Jeffrey Clemens, an associate professor of economics at the University of California at San Diego, noted that analyses of recent minimum wage changes “have tended to find negative” effects.

Clemens noted 2018 research suggested that declines in employer-provided health insurance have offset roughly 15 percent of the cost of states’ recent minimum wage increases.

He also noted that negative correlations between minimum wages and employer-provided health insurance are also notable in data from both the American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey.