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Durango Herald: Minimum wage ballot question centers on economics

By Mary Shinn
Durango Herald, Oct 29, 2016

An increase in the minimum wage could put financial pressure on many small businesses, but it may also give low-wage workers more buying power and put money back into the local economy. Voters are being asked to phase in an increase to the minimum wage from $8.31 to $12 an hour by 2020. The minimum wage for tipped workers would rise from $5.29 to $8.98 during those years. ...

Ore House co-owner Ryan Lowe sees a need for reform in the restaurant sector to help alleviate the...

Forbes: Businesses Line Up In Battle Over Higher Minimum Wage (To Support It!)

By Robb Mandelbaum
Forbes, Oct 28, 2016

For ten years, Jeff Rogoff and Jenni Hayes have carefully tended to their small salads-and-pizza restaurant, Sazza, in the south Denver suburbs. Almost immediately, they faced the recession, but managed to stay in business serving local and sustainable ingredients — eventually they opened a small urban farm near the restaurant. Since 2011, Sazza has prospered, enough so that next spring Rogoff and Hayes plan to open a second restaurant on the north side of Denver, in a redeveloped airplane hangar at the edge of the city’s former Stapleton Airport...

Chicago Tribune: Cook County approves $13 hourly minimum wage affecting suburbs

By Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz
Chicago Tribune, Oct 26, 2016

Suburban Cook County has joined Chicago in adopting a $13 hourly minimum wage... The Cook County Board voted Wednesday to gradually raise the minimum wage to $13 by July 2020, following the legislation's approval Tuesday by the board's Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee. The move, which comes more than a year after Chicago implemented the first phase of a minimum wage increase, adds Cook County to the growing list of government bodies seeking to help lift people out of poverty by raising the wages of the lowest-paid...

KUNC (NPR): What Happened When One Colorado Business Raised Their Starting Wages

By Erin O'Toole
KUNC (NPR) Colorado, Oct 26, 2016

Polar Bottle is a manufacturing company based out of Boulder, Colorado, focused on insulated, reusable water bottles made with sports-enthusiasts in mind. It's an unlikely proving ground for Colorado's minimum wage debate. But in 2011, the company decided to do what state voters are now voting on. The company raised the starting minimum wage for their employees to $12 an hour. Now, they say they have learned a few lessons.

To get the politics out of the way, one of the owners of Polar Bottle, Judy Amabile, is totally...

Politico: John Elway Hit By Wage Defense

Politico Morning Shift, Oct 25, 2016

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JOHN ELWAY HIT BY WAGE DEFENSE: A group backing Colorado’s ballot initiative to increase the hourly minimum to $12 by 2020 is tangling with onetime Broncos quarterback John Elway. In a television ad released Sunday, the Duke of Denver said “a harmful and unfair minimum wage increase” was being pushed by out-of-state interests. “I love this state,” he said, “and I’m worried about the games being played with our Constitution.” Colorado Families for a Fair Wage returned fire with a statement Monday from Judy Amabile, owner of Polar Bottle, a Boulder-based company...

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel: Barbara Roberts: Minimum wage increase will be good for our businesses, communities and state

Op-Ed By Barbara Roberts
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Oct 25, 2016

I’ve heard a lot of Chicken Little talk lately.

With the election around the corner, more and more people are talking about Amendment 70—the ballot initiative that would gradually raise the state’s minimum wage to $12 by 2020. I’ve heard some crazy things, like an increased minimum wage will result in $18 hamburgers and $200 haircuts.

As a business owner, that kind of “sky is falling” rhetoric insults my common sense. Instead, I dig out my trusty calculator and run the numbers. Our entry...

Durango Herald: Richard Carpenter: Raising minimum wage is good business

Letter to the Editor By Richard Carpenter, CEO UltraSteam
Durango Herald and Cortez Journal, Oct 25, 2016

As a local business owner, I fully support an increase in the minimum wage to $12 per hour by 2020. This ballot initiative is a modest but good way to start making an economy that works for everyone, employers and employees alike.

Phased in over four years, small businesses like mine will have time to adjust and adapt. I want our employees to be able to afford rent, mortgages, groceries and what our other local businesses are selling...

Aspen Daily News: SkiCo comes out in support of proposed minimum wage hike on upcoming ballot

By Curtis Wackerle
Aspen Daily News, October 25, 2016

The Aspen Skiing Co. has come out in support of a proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would raise the minimum wage in Colorado to $12 an hour by 2020. ...

A statement from the campaign to pass the amendment touted SkiCo’s endorsement, noting that it is one of 250 businesses that have publicly endorsed the plan. Matthew Hamilton, the company’s sustainability director, said in the release that increasing the minimum wage will help combat income inequality “while increasing our ability to recruit and retain...