As of New Year’s Day, several minimum-wage employees across the U.S. automatically received a raise in pay. In fact, on January 1, 2018, lawmakers in 18 states and 20 localities upped the minimum wage.
At the stroke of midnight this past New Year’s Eve, the following states increased their minimum wages: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Washington. Those states already met or exceeded the federal minimum wage, so the new raises pushed up the bottom even higher. For example, in Ohio, the state minimum wage jumped from $8.15 an hour to $8.30.
In addition, from Albuquerque, N.M., to Tacoma, Wash., many cities took wages to even higher levels than the state minimums. For instance, in California, 11 local governments sent the minimum wage to $13 an hour or higher. In Mountain View and Sunnyvale, the wage floor rose to $15.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that about 80 million workers over the age of 16 are paid an hourly wage – and, of those, about 700,000 earn the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour.
About 1.5 million have wages set below $7.25 an hour, primarily because they are in exempt “service” positions – that is, they work in restaurants and other jobs where tips boost compensation to at least $7.25 an hour.
A number of state and local governments have been driving up wages in recent years in response to federal inaction. Congress has kept the federal minimum wage at $7.25 an hour since 2009.
The following links provide specific information on any recent changes to the minimum wage requirement in your market:
- http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/29/news/economy/2018-minimum-wage-increases/index.html
- http://www.epi.org/publication/18-states-will-increase-their-minimum-wages-on-january-1-benefitting-4-5-million-workers/
