The Aurora City Council late Monday night shot down a proposal to raise the minimum wage in Colorado’s third-largest city, the second time in two months such an effort has been rebuffed by the city’s elected leaders.
The vote, taken just a few ticks shy of midnight, was 6-5 with Mayor Mike Coffman breaking the tie.
Public comment Monday was filled with impassioned testimony for and against the proposal, which stretched on for several hours amid repeated telephonic challenges during the remote meeting.
Aurora resident Diego Lopez Fleming told the council that workers simply can’t get by on Colorado’s $12-an-hour minimum wage in a city where the median rent on a two-bedroom apartment runs nearly $1,500 a month.
“What’s the point in having so many parks in Aurora if working families can’t enjoy them?” he said. “Respecting the working class starts with raising the minimum wage.”
That claim was countered by numerous objections from business owners in the city, one of whom asked why rising rent was the responsibility of Aurora employers to cover. Many feared they would have to close if they are forced by the city to pay their workers more.
Other detractors wondered why city leaders were pushing a minimum wage increase in the midst of a global pandemic, which has shut down businesses and severely curtailed capacity in restaurants, shops and gyms.
A third wave of COVID-19 cases hitting Colorado now threatens to damage businesses further.
Backers of the wage hike say now is the exact moment to pay more to low-wage, frontline workers — the very people who regularly deal with the public despite the dangers the coronavirus poses in their jobs.
“Essential workers are risking exposure to COVID — and many have contracted COVID — so that everyone else can still live with a sense of normalcy,” said Aurora Councilwoman Alison Coombs, the main sponsor behind the measure. “These essential workers deserve essential pay, especially during this time.”
Coombs said the measure will benefit 53,000 Aurora workers by 2025 and provide a living wage and help “address the fact that over 50% of our city’s residents spend more than 30% of their income on housing.”
“A wage increase that brings us closer to keeping up with inflation and worker productivity is long overdue,” she said. “Before the pandemic, workers couldn’t keep up with the cost of living. The pandemic has laid bare just how many of our workers are living in the margins economically.”
The ordinance would have hiked Aurora’s minimum wage gradually over the next few years, from $12 an hour today to $12.60 an hour next year. By 2023, the minimum wage in the city would have reached $14.55 an hour while two years later it would hit $17 an hour.
That would be in excess of $3 an hour more than what the state will require as an hourly minimum — $13.91 — in 2025. Colorado voters in 2016 approved a gradual boost in the minimum wage to reach its current $12 an hour level. Colorado’s minimum wage in 2015 was $8.23 an hour.
A state law passed in 2019 allows cities and counties to set their own minimum wages starting this year.
Councilman Dave Gruber said businesses in Aurora that have been devastated over the last seven months by the coronavirus pandemic can’t handle more fiscal pain from an invigorated minimum wage.
“Based on the emails and calls we are receiving from restaurants, small businesses with fixed revenues where the corporate headquarters dictates prices, Medicare/Medicaid elderly care facilities, and warehouse facilities, we have been told this decision will lead to further closures,” Gruber told The Denver Post this week.
Raising the minimum wage in Aurora, he said, will have the practical effect of pressuring business owners to raise pay across the “entire low-end wage scale,” as other employees request a raise in their pay as well.
“The impact to unskilled laborers will be fewer full-time jobs, fewer work hours in the positions that are available and less opportunity to find work in the community,” Gruber said.
Last week, Aurora Chamber of Commerce President Kevin Hougen issued a “call to action” to the business community, saying “this is not the time to introduce a minimum wage increase when businesses are struggling to keep the doors open — let alone survive through the worst economic conditions in our recent history.”
Monday’s rejection comes after a more aggressive attempt to raise the minimum wage earlier this year fizzled, with a proposal in September that the floor for hourly compensation escalate to $20 by 2027.
Neighboring Denver raised its minimum wage going forward at the end of last year, boosting it to nearly $15 an hour next year. By 2025, Denver’s minimum wage is set to reach $17.34, marginally more than Aurora’s proposed rate.
Coombs said it’s important for Aurora to track with Denver — if not exceed — the rate for the state’s largest city.
“If employees can cross the street and make more money, they will. In order to keep workers in Aurora rather than having them leave for higher wages in Denver, we have to show that we’re going to be able to keep up with wage increases,” she said. “Ultimately, we need a comparable wage metrowide so that we’re not pitting cities and businesses against each other.”
But Gruber said while “the economies of Denver and Aurora are linked,” they are “very different.”
“The average Aurora income is far below Denver’s. We have few high-end restaurants, shops and businesses,” he said. “This impacts the amount of money shops, small businesses and restaurants can charge their customers, and in turn, pay their employees. If Aurora raises our wages, our businesses can flee to surrounding business-friendly towns and cities.”
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