‘The Market is Working’: Youngkin Signals Opposition to Minimum Wage Hike

Gov. Glenn Youngkin indicated Tuesday he’s unlikely to support pending legislation increasing Virginia’s minimum wage, saying market forces do a better job of determining hourly pay rates.

Speaking to reporters after a small business-focused event in Richmond, Youngkin stopped short of saying he’d veto a Democratic-backed bill that would raise Virginia’s minimum wage to $13.50 per hour next year and $15 per hour by 2026. But the governor was clear about his belief an increase isn’t necessary.

“I don’t think that you need to send a bill because the market is handling it,” Youngkin said. “And they should allow small businesses to handle this.”

When Democrats took full control of the General Assembly in 2020, they set in motion a plan that gradually raised the minimum wage from the $7.25 federal floor to $12 at the start of 2023. That plan envisioned a pause to assess the impacts of the initial increases, and Democrats are re-upping the proposal this year to try to achieve their initial goal of getting the wage to $15.

The election of a Republican governor in 2021 complicated that plan.

Virginia Democrats continue push to hike state minimum wage to $15

“If you go around and see what people are paying around the commonwealth of Virginia, there are very rare circumstances where people are paying minimum wage. And yet here we are with lots of economic counsel that says that it harms job growth,” Youngkin said. “So the market is working. Virginians are earning lots of money. We’ve now gotten our labor participation rate back up to where it was before the pandemic, and now we’re at a 12-year high.”

In a speech to a National Federation of Independent Businesses group, Youngkin said he won’t sign any bills coming out of the Democratic-controlled legislature that are “inherently anti-business.” But those bills, even being advanced and discussed, he warned, can still set a “tone” that harms Virginia’s competitiveness.

“The tone that they take with the bills that they are progressing, the tone that they take with the bills that they are not progressing, is not just being watched by the pundits who pay attention to political activity,” Youngkin said. “It is being watched by the business community every single day. And that the business community will vote. Not in an election. But when their next expansion opportunity is going to happen. Where that next franchise is going to go. Whether they’re going to go from five employees to eight.”

In his State of the Commonwealth speech earlier this month, Youngkin vowed to veto any potential effort to repeal Virginia’s right-to-work law, which impedes the ability of labor unions to organize by prohibiting mandatory union membership. The governor reiterated that stance in Tuesday’s address, but his comments on the minimum wage were his most extensive remarks yet on a more concrete piece of pro-worker legislation. Unlike right-to-work repeal, Democratic leaders have identified the minimum wage bill as a top priority.

A state study completed last year estimated that roughly 500,000 Virginians made $12 or less per hour as of 2021, with a million workers earning $15 or less. That study noted that data limitations make it difficult to measure the exact size of Virginia’s population earning minimum wage.

“While Virginia’s minimum wage population could be characterized as small in absolute terms, Virginia nonetheless has the ninth largest minimum wage workforce in the country in absolute terms and the eighth largest in terms of percentage of hourly workers,” the study found.

Democratic lawmakers have said their phased approach to increasing the minimum wage to $15 was a prudent one, and raising the minimum wage further will help workers keep up with the rapid inflation that coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a news release celebrating initial votes in favor of the bill to put Virginia on track for a $15 wage, left-leaning advocacy group Progress Virginia said “no one should have to choose between putting food on the dinner table and keeping the lights on.”

“Working families deserve a raise, and we won’t stop fighting until we make that a reality,” said Progress Virginia Executive Director LaTwyla Mathias.

In his remarks to reporters, Youngkin said he has “constructive” relationships with the General Assembly’s new Democratic leaders, but stressed he’s most interested in legislation both parties can support.

“Anything that is simply being sent to me in order to elicit a political response is wasted time,” Youngkin said.

Mercury reporter Charlie Paullin contributed to this story

by Graham Moomaw, Virginia Mercury

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sarah Vogelsong for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and Twitter.