The South Dakota minimum wage is $5.15 per hour and the minimum cash wage for tipped employees is $2.13 per hour with the requirement that an employer must ensure that an employee still receives no less than the minimum wage of $5.15 per hour. At the beginning of the 2006 South Dakota Legislature session, Governor Mike Rounds urged the legislators to raise the minimum wage in South Dakota from the current $5.15 per hour. However, at that time he did not provide a suggested state minimum wage rate.
He did, however, say that when he was a state senator in 1997 he sponsored a measure to raise the state minimum wage to match the federal minimum wage and now believes it is time for South Dakota to raise the state’s minimum wage above the federal rate. In his speech to the legislators he also stated that he would work with economists to find the right number to increase the minimum wage. He is looking for a dollar figure that would help the minimum wage worker as well as ensure that there would be no job losses to them. In previous years the legislators of South Dakota introduced bills to increase the minimum wage but those measures were defeated.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau South Dakota has shown an increase in the poverty rates for the years 2001 through 2003. Although the unemployement rate is at 3% for South Dakota, there are 36.5% workers who are a single parent of three and living at the poverty level. Other states who have raised their minimum wage have found that many of these workers have been able to move out of the poverty level range which helped in boosting their state’s economy, increasing state revenue and decreasing welfare rolls.
Currently, there is no legislation proposed in the South Dakota Legislature as well as no coalition group working on getting a ballot issue for the next general election.
