Minimum Wage Increase Considered For Lakewood Employees

LAKEWOOD, OH — Lakewood City Council is considering instituting a $15 minimum wage for all municipal employees.

During the April 19 council meeting, Councilpersons Dan O'Malley and Tristan Rader introduced Ordinance 15-2021. The legislation was referred to the finance committee, but Rader expects it to be passed this summer.

"I think this is something that is just the right thing to do no matter what. This is something I worked on when I was an activist in Cleveland. This is something that we've been working on for a while," Rader told Patch. "It's the morally right thing to do."

O'Malley advocated for the minimum wage increase on his social media accounts, saying, "We cannot ask employees to tirelessly serve our citizens every day and then expect their families to live in poverty."

In a letter to his colleagues, O'Malley noted the city's current minimum wage for municipal employees is $12.05 for workers with benefits, and $13.36 for workers without benefits. However, to meet the obligations of the city's Fair Employment Wage legislation, O'Malley believes council must increase the minimum wage to $15.

"As stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars, we must use those dollars to invest in the working people of our City and ought not to perpetuate a cycle of poverty. Everyone in our community is impacted by poverty and the struggles of our neighbors who live on the edge of poverty. Investing in workers’ wages is an investment in all of us," O'Malley wrote in his letter.

Rader said he would like to see the minimum wage increase instituted as soon as possible and expects Ordinance 15-2021 to be implemented by July or August.