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Nearly 7 in 10 Minneapolis voters support a $15 minimum wage requirement in the city, according to a new poll released by advocates of the measure.
On Monday, District Court Judge Susan Robiner issued a decision ordering the City of Minneapolis to put the $15 minimum wage charter amendment on the November 2016 ballot.
Earlier this month, the Minneapolis City Council voted to block the amendment. In her ruling, Robiner found the city’s interpretation of the law “untenable” and without basis in Minnesota law.
“To reject this proposal based on its content somehow being improper, which the City urges, amounts to passing judgment on the quality of the proposal which is not the province of the court,” Robiner wrote.
The poll, conducted by Patinkin Research Strategies from Aug. 8-11, shows 68 percent of likely voters in Minneapolis would vote yes to putting the $15 minimum wage in the City’s Charter. Results are based on a telephone poll of 400 registered likely voters in Minneapolis, with a margin of error of 4.9 percent.
“Support for a $15 minimum wage ballot measure is both broad and deep in Minneapolis,” write Ben Patinkin and Maggie Simich of Patinkin Research Strategies, an Oregon-based public opinion research and strategic consulting firm, in the summary memo of the polling data.
“With fewer than one-in-10 undecided, this ballot measure will be in a particularly strong position should it make it onto the ballot.”
Those directly affected by poverty wages were most likely to support protecting $15 an hour in the Minneapolis charter. The poll shows the vast majority of African-Americans and women – groups disproportionately affected by poverty wages – back the $15 charter amendment. A staggering 48 percent of black people in Minneapolis live in poverty, compared to 13 percent of whites. Two-thirds of low-wage workers are women.
Judge Robiner’s decision in the case (Vasseur vs. City of Minneapolis) was expected by Aug. 26, the deadline to finalize the 2016 ballot. In its brief, the legal team for the $15 petitioners argued the Minneapolis City Council acted illegally by refusing to put the issue on the ballot after it had garnered the legally required number of signatures. The city attorney argued the amendment went beyond the scope of citizen action allowed under the City Charter.