Despite pleas from business owners to postpone the next phase of the city’s minimum wage hike until after the pandemic, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s office confirmed that the city will raise wages to $14.77 on Jan. 1, as scheduled.

City leaders met last week with stakeholders, including the Colorado Restaurant Association, to deliver the decision, which is estimated to impact more than 50,000 Denver workers.

Last year, Hancock and City Councilwoman At-Large Robin Kniech pushed forward a bill that raised the minimum wage for workers in Denver, beginning in 2020. Wages will rise from $12.85 an hour this year to $14.77 next year, then again to $15.87 in 2022, with annual adjustments made each year thereafter.  

The offices of Hancock and Kniech issued a joint statement Monday in light of the decision:

“While recognizing the challenges to businesses throughout the COVID pandemic, as co-sponsors of the minimum wage increase adopted by City Council in 2019, Mayor Hancock and Councilwoman Kniech intend to keep the planned minimum wage increase in place and will not advance a council action to delay. This was not an easy decision, but as our economy recovers – and we know it will – we don’t want to leave behind our minimum wage workers, who are often frontline workers in the pandemic and disproportionately women and people of color. Putting additional dollars into the hands of workers also provides an economic stimulus by increasing their ability to spend. 

“The city has and will continue to support small, local businesses with financial relief, creative patio expansion programs, and other assistance to help them stay in business, and we’re encouraged by efforts to expand relief at the state level as well. But as we have emphasized before, only federal relief can meet the full scale of the economic challenges faced by businesses and working families in Denver and across our nation.”

The Colorado Restaurant Association has been “imploring” the city to delay the minimum wage until at least 2022, after restaurant owners have a chance to recover from the pandemic. 

“According to data collected mid-pandemic, 42% of restaurants would be forced to lay off at least 10% of their staff if this increase happens,” Sonia Riggs, president and CEO of the association told Colorado Politics on Nov. 19. “That’s on top of what is rapidly becoming a catastrophic situation: With Denver entering Level Red and being forced to shutdown indoor dining again, we could lose a quarter of the restaurants in this city within the next month, and nearly 60% in less than 3 months.

“We’re going to see mass layoffs and furloughs as soon as dining rooms are closed — in fact, we’ve already started seeing them as soon as the announcement was made for the 15 counties moving into Level Red,” Riggs warned. “We ask the Council to consider what Denver will look like with a quarter or half of its restaurants missing — it’s not going to feel like Denver anymore — and do everything they can to alleviate the burdens facing these essential community players rather than adding more costs to their ledgers.”

This story is developing and will be updated. 

Getty images Denver’s minimum wage ordinance requires employers to pay hourly employees $12.85 in 2020. Come 2021, wages will increase to $14.77 and again to $15.87 at the start of 2022.

Getty images