For years, Congress and elected officials across the country have sidestepped one of the clearest economic problems facing working families: The minimum wage no longer keeps pace with the real cost of living.

Today, even full-time work at the federal minimum wage doesn’t pay enough to rent a market-rate two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country. And too often, politicians have intervened to keep it that way.

For example, I live in Oklahoma, where the state minimum wage has been tied to the federal rate of $7.25 an hour since 2009. As a result, a full-time minimum-wage worker here earns about $15,000 a year before taxes—below the poverty line for an individual and wholly inadequate to survive.

This problem did not happen by accident.

An economy works best when working people can afford to participate in it.

In Oklahoma, some state lawmakers introduced bills to raise the minimum wage year after year—only to see those proposals die without a hearing or a vote. In 2014, the legislature went even further, passing a law that prevented cities and towns from raising local wages, even if local voters and community leaders supported the change.

That meant Oklahomans who wanted to see workers earn a fair wage were left with one remaining option: taking the issue directly to the people.

Again and again, voters in red, blue, and purple states alike have passed measures to raise their minimum wages. In the last decade or so, voters have approved minimum-wage increases in about a dozen states, including Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Washington, plus DC.

In early 2024, Oklahomans turned to the state’s initiative petition process as well. Over 150,00 voters signed a petition to place State Question 832 on the ballot. If approved, SQ 832 will gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour over several years and then index future increases to the Consumer Price Index after 2030.

Yet even as Oklahomans moved toward a vote, politics intervened. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt delayed the election for SQ 832 nearly two years. The wait is about to come to an end on June 16—when........

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