Santa Fe first city in USA to tie minimum wage to rent
"“It is the responsibility of the City of Santa Fe to ensure its workforce receives equitable and competitive wages."
Santa Fe took a small but long-overdue step toward reality this week.
After years of watching working families pushed to the brink by the spiraling cost of simply existing in northern New Mexico, the Santa Fe City Council voted Wednesday night to raise the minimum wage from $15 to $17.50 in 2027.
The most interesting part isn’t the number — it’s the formula behind it.
For once, a city is admitting out loud what every renter has known for decades: the cost of housing is what’s killing us.
Reilly S. White, a professor at the University of New Mexico who helped build the city’s new calculation, said Santa Fe is effectively the first municipality in the country to tie future wage increases not just to inflation but to the cost of rent itself.
“We investigated six different minimum wage scenarios,” he said. “This one — combining CPI with housing costs — is the one the council adopted. We don’t typically see this anywhere else.”
In other words: a US city finally stopped pretending the Consumer P…
