Corbett: Lawmakers should raise minimum wage before telling counties they can’t

DAVENPORT - Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett, a potential 2018 candidate for governor, said here Monday that if lawmakers want to stop local governments from raising their minimum wage levels they need to boost the state's wage floor to between $8.60 and $9.10 per hour.

That would be more than $1 higher than the state's current minimum wage, but would fall below where a handful of counties have voted in recent months to push their own wages over the next few years.

Corbett, who was in the Quad Cities to speak to the Scott County Republican Women's group, has been touting the goals of Engage Iowa, a conservative think tank he leads that has been pushing for income tax reform. A former speaker of the Iowa House, Corbett is one of a handful of Republicans mentioned as possible suitors for the governor's job in two years.

In an interview, Corbett said the state shouldn't cut off the ability of local governments to raise the wage minimums in their jurisdictions while not raising the state's current wage of $7.25 an hour.

'I think it would be wrong just to have pre-emption and then not raise the minimum wage,” he said. 'What you're doing is taking away local control and replacing it with a statewide effort. To keep everybody content then, I think, it probably needs to be in that $8.60 to $9.10 range.”

Last summer, Corbett advocated raising the statewide minimum wage to $8 an hour.

As a member of the Linn County group studying possible local action on minimum wage, he pressed again for the $8 figure, then amended it to $8.25 an hour, which was recommended to the Board of Supervisors.

With Republicans gaining control of the Legislature after last Tuesday's election, it's unclear whether there will be any action on the state's minimum wage, which is lower than all neighboring states except Wisconsin.

The minimum wage has been a hot topic in the state since supervisors in Polk, Linn, Johnson and Wapello counties have all moved to raise their local wages.

Gov. Terry Branstad has expressed concern about varying wage levels across the state and said last month he's willing to talk about the possibility of an increase.

Branstad hasn't said what minimum wage he would be willing to accept, but even the levels that Corbett is talking about aren't as high as where some of the counties are moving.

Johnson County's minimum wage is scheduled to go to $10.10 an hour beginning in January. Linn County's wage will go up to $8.25 an hour in January, then up $1 per year for the next two years after that, to $10.25 per hour in 2019. Polk County's minimum is scheduled to go to $8.75 an hour in April and rise to $10.75 in 2019.