Minimum Wage Hike

From the Huffington Post:

New Years Day will bring a small pay bump to some of the lowest-paid American workers, with 10 states set to hike their minimum wages for 2013.

Nearly a million low-wage workers will see their earnings rise because of the increases, most of which come courtesy of state cost-of-living adjustments that account for inflation. Washington State will once again have the highest minimum wage in the nation, at $9.19 per hour, after a raise of 15 cents for the new year. The other states raising their wage floors are Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont.

The federal minimum wage remains $7.25 per hour, with no cost-of-living adjustment, and prevails in 31 states that do not mandate a higher state minimum wage. The last raise to the federal minimum came in 2009, after a series of increases signed into law by President George W. Bush.

For roughly 855,000 low-wage workers, the new state minimum wages will be higher than their current wage levels, translating into an immediate raise, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. EPI estimates that another 140,000 people will benefit indirectly from the wage hikes, due to pay scales being upwardly adjusted.

The raises will be between 10 and 35 cents per hour and will translate into an extra $200 to $500 per year for minimum-wage earners -- a not-insignificant sum for workers bringing home $15,000 per year or less.

Hopefully this helps those people in case we go over the fiscal cliff.