A ballot initiative to increase Alaska’s minimum wage has enough signatures to be included on the November ballot.
As seen at the Division of Elections, the group needed 26,705, and submitted 31,719 qualified signatures. The signatures were spread out between a majority of House districts, as required. The exceptions were House Districts 37-40 and House District 7, which underperformed.
The group behind the ballot initiative is Better Jobs for Alaska, a project of the Outside dark-money group the Sixteen-Thirty Fund, which has been written about extensively on this website. The group’s chair is Ed Flanagan, of alaskans for a Fair Minimum Wage. Other financial supporters are the Fairness Project in Washington, D.C., and SEI’u 776 Alaska PAC of Anchorage. The AFL-CIO is also involved in the effort to raise the minimum wage.
Supporters of the ballot initiative filed their signed petitions on Jan. 10 with the Division of Elections. For the past six weeks, the division has been verifying signatures.
Alaska’s minimum wage on Jan. 1 went from $10.85 to $11.73 an hour, as part of a ballot initiative passed by voters in 2014.
The proposed bill language for the new minimum wage is:
“An Act increasing the Alaska minimum wage to $13.00 per hour effective July 1, 2025, to $14.00 per hour effective July 1, 2026, to $15.00 per hour July 1, 2027 and to thereafter be adjusted annually for inflation; providing employees the ability to accrue up to 56 hours of paid sick leave per year if their employers have 15 employees or more; providing employees the ability to accrue up to 40 hours of paid sick leave if their employers have under 15 employees; and to prohibit employers from compelling employees to attend meetings regarding religious or political matters that are unrelated to their work.”
Supporters say that the cost of living in Alaska is high and necessitates higher wages.
The entire bill language can be read at this link.
The Division of Elections and Better Jobs for Alaskans have not yet made an announcement about the signature threshold having been met.
Meanwhile, the ballot initiative to get rid of ranked-choice voting in Alaska has not been updated at the Division of Elections since Thursday, but Phil Izon, who is with Alaskans for Honest Elections, has notified supporters around the state that the signature threshold has been met. An announcement is expected next week.
