April Sims, signature drive director for Raise Up Washington and the ballot initiative 1433 campaign, speaking in Washington Wednesday.

On Thursday, an advocacy group in Arizona prepared to submit more than 250,000 signatures to the state secretary of state's office to put a state minimum wage increase on the November ballot. A day earlier, a group in Washington state handed in its signatures.

The ordinance proposed by Arizona for Fair Wages and Healthy Families calls for raising the state minimum wage from its current $8.05 an hour to $12 an hour by 2020, and for mandating some paid sick leave. Raise Up Washington's would boost the state minimum from its current $9.47 an hour to $13.50 an hour by 2020 and calls for paid sick leave as well.



Both campaigns were funded in part by The Fairness Project, a San Francisco Bay Area–based nonprofit supported by unions, some businesses, and small donors that backs ballot initiative campaigns that address income inequality.

Once signatures are validated by each state's secretary of state's office over the next few weeks, the measures can earn a place on the November ballots, according to Fairness Project Communications Director Linda Serrato Ybarra.

Arizona and Washington join Maine, which in February received enough signatures to put a similar minimum wage raise on their November ballot. The initiative in Maine calls for a raise to $12 an hour by 2020 and eliminating the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers.