Right now Oklahoma's minimum wage is the same as the federal standard, which is $7.25 an hour.
State Question 832 would raise the minimum wage to $12 in 2027. Then it would steadily bring it up to $15 an hour in 2029 and base future increases on the U.S. Consumer Prices Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers starting in 2030.
If approved, the question would remove the state's minimum wage exemption for certain agricultural workers.
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, it is required for most agricultural workers to get the federal minimum wage, according to the National Agricultural Law Center. But there are exemptions, including workers in their employer's immediate family, those working mainly in range production of livestock and some hand-harvest laborers.
As of 2022, the median wage for farmworkers and laborers for crops, nurseries and greenhouses was $14.42. Farmworkers for farms, ranches and aquaculture animals made $13.72 in the same year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Throughout the question's journey to the ballot, it has received strong support and opposition. The Oklahoma Farm Bureau Legal Foundation and the State Chamber filed a challenge of the initiative petition with the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The high court ruled against the challenge.
Tommy Salisbury is a row crop farmer and rancher in northeast Oklahoma. He also owns a feed store and sale barn. In all, he employs about 53 people, and usually about 20 of those employees are high school students.
He doesn't have a problem with paying those students more than the minimum wage — all of them make more than that already.
"If we have to change this to, eventually, $15 and then who knows what the next step after $15 is in 2029," Salisbury said. "Where do we go from there? It's just you're really going to impact the youth of this in rural communities."
The way the question is written, Salisbury said he would have to pass that extra input cost on to the consumer.
"But input prices are currently higher than they've ever been, and we're selling our crops at probably the lowest it's been since the late 70s and mid-80s," Salisbury said. "And so this would add another input that is just something that we can't capture back."
Michael Kelsey, executive vice president of the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association, said he does not have a problem with the dollar amount but is opposed to the question because it would scrap the state's agriculture worker exemption.
"When we're calving out heifers, if you will, that's a 24 hour a day job," Kelsey said. "And so it really doesn't provide flexibility to recognize that labor is sometimes — not always, but sometimes — independent from time."
He said the agriculture industry sometimes provides indirect compensation. This can look like employers covering the cost of farrier payments for employees' horses as part of their total compensation.
Inaction from lawmakers
The American Farmers and Ranchers / the Oklahoma Farmers' Union does not have an official position on the state question.
Union president Scott Blubaugh said there has been a lot of debate and review on the measure. He said agriculture workers are difficult to find, and he is not aware of people in the agriculture sector hiring people for a $7.25 hourly wage.
But he said the current minimum wage is too low because it's not enough to survive on.
At the same time, he has concerns with automatic wage increases tied to federal inflation. Blubaugh said Oklahoma's inflation could be different than what is happening federally.
His main concern is putting measures in the state constitution. Once something is there, he said, it is hard to alter or fix if problems arise.
Blubaugh blames federal and state lawmakers for ignoring the issue.
"But this is really a failure of the United States Congress in not addressing this issue and our Oklahoma legislature for not addressing the issue," Blubaugh said. "And we see that so many times with our state questions because the legislature, the Congress fails to do their job. The people will only take so much of it, and then they're going to rear up and you're going to get a state question that is not perfectly written."
This report was produced by the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange, a collaboration of public media organizations. Help support collaborative journalism by donating at the link at the top of this webpage.
