Advocates of a hike in the minimum wage, are looking to Ohio this fall as a barometer of how the issue might play nationally - and they think it will play well.
"I think Ohio will be a very big testing ground for this proposition," said John Podesta, a former Clinton chief of staff now working for the liberal Center for American Progress that's behind Ohio's minimum wage ballot issue.
The proposed Ohio ballot measure - also supported by union groups, including Steelworkers Associate Member activists, a coalition of liberal churches and legislative Democrats - seeks to raise Ohio's minimum wage to $6.85 an hour from the federal minimum of $5.15.
Podesta said victory in Ohio this November could add to a "growing momentum" nationally in favor of higher minimum wages that backers hope might spark congressional action. He worked for Clinton when the federal minimum wage was last raised in 1997.
Supporters of the fall ballot issue, which still has fewer than half the 322,000 signatures it needs to qualify for the ballot, rolled out a new study Wednesday that showed small businesses in states with a higher minimum wage actually perform better economically than those that stick with the federal figure.
"What we found was extremely consistent," said Amy Hanauer, executive director of Policy Matters Ohio and the report's co-author. "There was better performance in minimum wage states almost any way we looked at the data."
The study found that small business employment, inflation-adjusted small business payroll, small business retail employment and the total number of small business establishments have all grown faster in the 12 states that adopted a higher-than-federal minimum wage since 2003 than they did in states that kept the federal minimum.
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