When Oklahoma voters strongly rejected State Question 832, a proposal to increase the state minimum wage to $15 and then ever higher, they may have cast their ballots in opposition in part because the rhetoric of SQ 832 proponents was substantially untethered from economic reality.

One ad produced by the Yes on SQ 832 campaign proclaimed, “Oklahoma wages haven’t gone up in two decades.”

That statement simply wasn’t true.

While the government-mandated minimum wage in Oklahoma has been $7.25 an hour since 2009, the actual starting hourly wage for entry-level jobs has steadily increased in the years since, and public data indicate that many entry-level jobs in Oklahoma today pay substantially more than the mandatory minimum wage.

“The reality is wages in Oklahoma are already being driven up by a strong labor market, not government mandates,” Chad Warmington, president and CEO of The State Chamber of Oklahoma, noted in an election-night statement following the defeat of SQ 832. “Oklahoma businesses are competing for talent, investing in their people, and helping move our state forward.”

State Question 832 would have more than doubled Oklahoma’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour by 2029 and then continued increasing it every year based on increases in the cost-of-living in the nation’s largest urban centers. 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.

SQ 832’s proponents often suggested a full-time, experienced adult worker in Oklahoma may make only $7.25 an hour. But public data indicate that scenario is extremely rare, at best.

According to the ZipRecruiter job site, the average annual pay for an entry-level job in Oklahoma is approximately $14.37 an hour, nearly double the mandatory minimum of $7.25, and the majority of entry-level salaries range between $10.78 an hour and $17.25.

Workstream, a payroll and hiring platform for the restaurant industry, reports that the average hourly wage for a retail salesperson in Oklahoma is $11.81—which is nearly 63 percent above the state minimum.

In video ads and mailers, the Yes on SQ 832 campaign highlighted several individuals who would have supposedly benefited from the measure’s passage.

However, the average wage in Oklahoma for many of the professions represented in the Yes on SQ 832’s ads is already far above $7.25 an hour.

In fact, several of the spokespersons for SQ 832 worked in industries where average hourly wages in Oklahoma are already near or above the proposed $15-an-hour minimum.

One Yes on SQ 832 ad featured a school bus driver, a home healthcare worker, a special education teacher assistant, and an early childhood educator.

Another ad featured an electrician who called himself a “small business owner” who touted SQ 832 as a benefit to employers as well as employees.

But job site ZipRecruiter reports that the average annual pay for a school bus driver in Oklahoma averages $19.45 an hour, and 75 percent of those jobs pay $15 an hour or more already.

Similarly, job site Indeed reports that a home healthcare aide in Oklahoma is paid an average base salary of $16.69 an hour, and that hourly wages for that job range between $13.17 and $21.14.

A special education teacher assistant in Oklahoma earns an average of $17.17 an hour, according to ZipRecruiter, with 90 percent of those jobs earning at least $13.10 an hour and some special education assistants receiving as much as $23.75 an hour.

ZipRecruiter reports that a daycare teacher in Oklahoma earns an average salary of $13.85 an hour.

The average salary for an electrician is $27.25 an hour, according to Zip Recruiter, with 88 percent of Oklahoma electricians earning more than $19.53 an hour.

Experts say it’s not surprising the Yes on SQ 832 campaign struggled to find spokespersons working in Oklahoma industries where an adult is paid only $7.25 an hour on average—because the minimum wage isn’t designed for most jobs.

“The minimum wage has always been a floor, mostly for teens and other entry-level workers at the very start of their careers,” said Rebekah Paxton, research director at the Employment Policies Institute. “Evidence confirms this is just a starting point: most who start at the minimum wage see a raise within the first year. On the other hand, high wage mandates make it even harder for businesses to offer these important job opportunities. Oklahomans decisively struck down SQ 832, having seen these negative consequences play out across the country. This is good news for workers and local businesses.”