LANSING, MI - The State Board of Canvassers on Tuesday approved the form of a ballot initiative that would raise the minimum wage to $12 per hour by 2022.

"This campaign is about creating a pathway to economic freedom for everyone and doing away with the separate wage tiers we have in this state," said One Fair Wage Michigan Campaign Chair Alicia Renee Farris.

"The current system with the lower minimum wage for tipped employees creates too much uncertainty, inequality and problems for working people."

PERSPECTIVES

Michigan crafted a plan to raise its minimum wage in 2014. A series of gradual increases ends in 2018, when Michigan's minimum wage will go to $9.25 for hourly workers and $3.52 for tipped workers.

The ballot proposal, which would need to gather 252,523 valid signatures from voters to appear on the ballot, would raise the minimum wage from $12 per hour by 2022. In addition, the minimum wage for tipped workers like waiters would rise until it was also $12 per hour by 2024.

Farris described the $12 wage as a stepping stone toward the $15 per hour many have advocated.

Nasheena Bland, a Detroit waitress and bartender who moved to Michigan from Georgia, said the $15 would be great but the $12 is positive as well.

"We would love the $15 but anything is better than what people like myself have to deal with. I'm a server and a bartender and we normally get paid like $3.50 or $5 an hour," Bland said.

Farris said the group would work to train volunteer signature gatherers before beginning the signature-gathering. She did not rule out using a signature-gathering firm.