Politicians Are Getting A Pay Raise

The Minimum Wage Hasn’t Changed Since 2009

In the fall of 2025, after a closed-door process that even some Republican lawmakers called a mess, a board of political appointees voted to raise Oklahoma legislators’ base pay to $54,900 a year. The raise for politicians in the legislature comes for a job the state itself calls part-time: a typical legislative session is Constitutionally mandated to only run four months each year.

Meanwhile, full-time minimum wage worker in Oklahoma earns about $15,080 a year, a rate that hasn’t changed since 2009. A minimum wage worker would have to work full time for nearly four years to earn what a legislator will now make in a single year. And if you count a legislator’s full compensation that includes base pay, per diem for days in session, health benefits, and a state pension contribution, that adds up to roughly $72,869 a year, that same minimum wage worker would need to work almost five years to match what Oklahoma politicians collect in a single year.

Five years of work for a minimum wage worker working 40 hours a week 52 weeks a year. One year for a politician – for a part-time job.

Put 2009 and today side by side and the contrast is more stark. In 2009, an Oklahoma legislator’s base salary was $38,400. Today, once this fall’s raise takes effect, it’ll be $54,900. That’s about 43 percent higher, roughly $16,500 more in their pocket.

In 2009, Oklahoma’s minimum wage was $7.25 an hour. Today, it’s $7.25 an hour. Politician’s pay climbed by the price of a decent used car. Pay for minimum wage workers didn’t move a single penny.

The board that sets legislative pay meets every odd-numbered year which means nine meetings since 2009, nine moments when the people steering this state sat down specifically to talk about the pay of Oklahoma legislators. Legislators’ own base pay got cut once and raised twice over that stretch, with extra stipend bumps for leadership layered on top.

The minimum wage has never made it for a vote by the full legislature in the same time span because in Oklahoma, the minimum wage isn’t something a board fixes from a comfortable conference room by political appointees, (who happen to be actively campaigning against SQ 832 right now) it takes either a vote of the people, or a vote of the entire Legislature itself, the same body now drawing the bigger paycheck.

Two sets of rules around pay raises, one for politicians, one for everyone else.

While they’re in office, legislators get taxpayer funded health care and pension benefits. That same minimum wage worker, a cashier in Muskogee or a healthcare worker in Altus, works far more than four months a year and likely gets none of that from her employer. No state pension. No free health plan. If she gets sick, she probably takes off without pay, driving down her hourly wage even further.

So the math isn’t just about salary. It’s about a system where politicians figured out how to direct a politically appointed board to give themselves health care and retirement benefits for four months of work, then refused to do the same for the hard-working Oklahomans who keep this state running twelve months a year.

None of this is by accident. The minimum wage sitting at $7.25 has been a choice. Just like giving the legislature a pay raise was a choice made behind closed doors, by a board reshuffled until it produced the answer politicians wanted.

If legislators are okay with the state finding $1.3 million a year to hike their own pay, why are they fighting a pay raise for the people stocking the shelves at our grocery stores, educating our kids in daycares, and driving the school bus routes that get Oklahoma children to school safely?

Oklahoma voters can make a different policy choice on June 16th. This Land’s research with Scioto Analysis has laid out what raising Oklahoma’s minimum wage would actually mean for the people living on it as it relates to housing security, for our labor market, for public safety in communities from Atoka to Enid.

The findings are clear: when working Oklahomans earn enough to live on, whole communities get steadier. The question in front of us on June 16th is simple, and it’s the same one a Coyle lawmaker raised when she challenged her own party over the raise: who do our leaders actually work for?

It’s been seventeen years. It’s time the people who do the work get a pay raise. On June 16th, we can give them one.