Michigan’s $10.33 hourly minimum wage should increase to $12.48 an hour on Feb. 21, the Michigan Supreme Court said in a Wednesday order that clarified the timeline for a phase-in of a $15 minimum wage.
The order came after the high court majority on July 31 ruled a strategy used to curb minimum wage and paid sick leave ballot initiatives was unconstitutional and that the minimum wage increase should be phased in starting Feb. 21, 2025. After the ruling, the state asked for clarification from the high court regarding how to calculate inflationary adjustments for the phase-in.
The state’s interpretation of the opinion outlined in its request for clarification “is largely correct,” Justice Elizabeth Welch wrote Wednesday.
Welch acknowledged that a footnote in the initial July 31 opinion she authored did have an error that was brought to her attention by an “outside legal publication” before the state also questioned the wording.
“The footnote correction changes nothing of substance in the opinion,” Welch wrote Wednesday. “And defendants properly understood the calculation required to determine the minimum wage rates.”
A Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity spokesman, when asked for comment, said the department still was reviewing Wednesday’s order.
Justice Brian Zahra authored a dissenting statement included in Wednesday’s order that reiterated concerns about the court’s “additional revisions to statutory law,” noting that the decision mapped out a “deeply confusing formula” to set wage rates.
“The judiciary simply has no historical practice, competence, or constitutional authority to draft the statutory law of this state,” Zahra wrote. “By this court subverting the established constitutional process for writing legislation, it significantly increased the likelihood that drafting errors would occur.”
Zahra was joined by Justice David Viviano in his dissenting statement.
Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office last month asked for guidance from the Supreme Court on how to calculate the inflationary adjustments required by the high court decision. The state’s filing noted there were several ways to interpret the court ruling, but the Department of Treasury planned to use an inflationary adjustment based around changes in consumer prices from January 2019 through June 2024.
That calculation would increase the minimum wage from the current $10.33 hourly rate to $12.48 in February 2025, $13.29 in February 2026, $14.16 in February 2027 and $14.97 in February 2028.
Wednesday’s court order indicated the state’s interpretation was correct and noted officials had a Nov. 1 deadline to publish the new rate.
The transition from a lower tipped wage for servers to the minimum wage should happen on the following timeline, the court noted Wednesday: The tipped wage should be at least 48% of minimum wage in February 2025, 60% in February 2026, 70% in February 2027, 80% in February 2028, 90% in February 2029 and 100% of the minimum wage in February 2030.
An earlier footnote from the Supreme Court had transition the tipped wage fully by February 2029.
Businesses have been raising concerns since the July 31 opinion regarding how the details of the paid sick leave law and the elimination of the tipped wage would affect them. They’ve pushed the Legislature for tweaks that would retain the tipped wage and alter some details of the paid sick leave law, but unions have pushed back strongly on the suggestion.
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