Many Durango residents are accustomed to working multiple jobs to stay afloat amid the city’s expensive and rising cost of living. Locals even coined the popular, playful phrase “Durango Tango” to describe the multipronged hustle often necessary to make ends meet.
Some Durango residents are proposing a shake-up they say would help eliminate the need to dance from job to job: a local minimum wage.
Members of Durango Forward, a New Era Colorado movement to raise the minimum wage in Durango, asked Durango City Council for a 15% minimum-wage increase on Wednesday. They were joined virtually by Nina DiSalvo, policy director for Towards Justice, a Denver-based nonprofit for economic justice, and Lindsay Fallon, Towards Justice operations director.
Fallon spoke on behalf of Durango employment lawyer and Durango Forward member David Albrechta, who did not make it to the meeting.
Reading Albrechta’s prepared comments, Fallon said people earning Colorado’s minimum wage of $14.81 per hour, or about $30,804 before taxes and withholdings, simply cannot afford to live in Durango. A state minimum-wage earner cannot afford necessities such as rent and groceries in the city, and that assumes he or she is working 40 hours per week, 52 weeks per year with no time off.
She added the current state minimum wage is $10 below the $24 per hour livable wage a single individual with no children must earn to live in La Plata County.
“As you know, this is forcing our workforce to move out of town and travel to work. This is setting us up to turn Durango into Telluride, Aspen and other communities where the workforce cannot afford to live where they work,” she said, citing Albrechta.
She said Colorado House Bill 19-1210 passed by the Colorado Legislature six years ago gives municipalities the authority to raise their local minimum wages by 15% per year, which if implemented in Durango now would be a $2.22 raise to $17.03.
“City Council talks a lot about prosperity, affordability, economic opportunity, and diversity, equity and inclusion,” she said. “Standing up for our local workforce and raising the minimum wage accomplishes all of these stated goals without any additional costs (to the city).”
Fallon and other attendees requested City Council schedule a study session in which Durango Forward members would present more detailed information. They stressed urgency, saying a meeting should be scheduled as soon as possible to support Durango’s workers.
Compañeros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center Co-Director Enrique Orozco said despite living in Durango for nine years, the high cost of housing pushed him to move to Bayfield, although he still works in and around Durango.
He said a 15% minimum wage increase would give families, including immigrant and marginalized families, the financial stability they need to live and contribute fully to Durango’s economy. Many essential industries, including child care, construction, hospitality and food services employ immigrants and pay minimum wages.
DiSalvo said raising the minimum wage would “level the playing field” for businesses that already pay higher wages than the state minimum, in addition to ensuring workers can afford to rent, shop at local stores and send their children to Durango schools.
She said minimum-wage increases boosts the overall economy, driving consumer spending, creating jobs and putting more money into workers’ pockets, leading to opportunities for businesses to expand.
After Denver implemented a minimum-wage increase in 2021, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment found the Mile High City’s unemployment dropped more than comparative cities, and likewise, wages across the city rose more than in comparative cities and more than wages across the state overall, she said.
She added a recent study of almost four decades of data found a 10% minimum-wage increase led to just a 0.36% increase in prices.
In interviews Thursday, councilors pumped the brakes, unsure a minimum-wage increase would deliver results as promised by proponents.
Councilor Dave Woodruff, council liaison to the Durango Chamber of Commerce and former Durango Restaurant Association president, said implementing the proposed 15% minimum wage increase would place a financial burden on small independent businesses already operating on thin margins, without knowing what additional economic impacts the new Trump administration has in store.
“I would be reticent, currently, to pass a broad, sweeping policy change that impacts local families and business owners,” he said.
He said he talked to small-business owners on Wednesday and Thursday about a local minimum wage, and many if not all of them said they are paying close to $17 an hour in addition to tips.
He said based on a cursory look at LinkedIn, front line entry-level positions in hospitality and retail, which offered $16 to $17 starting wages without experience, the labor market is already driving wage growth. He questioned if any council action is needed.
Restaurants specifically operate on a national average profit margin of 3% to 6%, meaning 3 cents to 6 cents out of every dollar spent goes to profitability, while the rest of revenues are spent on people, food supplies and the property, he said.
He said the city is trying to address the affordable housing and child care crises. If a minimum-wage increase puts a restaurant or a retail shop out of business, it also puts dozens to hundreds of people out of jobs.
Councilor Gilda Yazzie said she needs more information before she can say whether she would support a minimum-wage increase.
Both councilors said now is not the best time to make such a decision because new councilors are going to be elected in April, and they don’t want to make decisions so close to an election. Yazzie said she didn’t appreciate decisions being made by a previous council right before she took office.
cburney@durangoherald.com