Beginning July 1, Oregon will increase its hourly minimum wage by $0.70 to $14.20, while Nevada’s will increase by $0.75 to $11.25. Washington D.C. will increase its regular minimum wage by $0.90 to $17.00 while increasing its tipped minimum by $2.00 to $8.00. Connecticut increased its minimum wage on June 1 by $1.00 to $15.00 an hour.
This summer, Connecticut, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington D.C. will raise their minimum wages, boosting pay for 765,000 workers who will collectively gain more than $615 million in wages. Meanwhile, 15 cities and counties will implement minimum wage increases, providing timely relief for low-wage workers facing rising prices. These updates can all be viewed in EPI’s interactive Minimum Wage Tracker and in Figure A and Table 1 below.
These increases will produce a welcome wage boost for low-wage workers in these states. If you take into account all affected workers—including workers directly receiving an increased minimum wage and those indirectly affected as employers adjust their wage ladders to the new minimum wages—we estimate the average change in hourly wages will be $0.40 in Nevada, $0.42 in Oregon, $0.57 in Connecticut, and $0.74 in Washington D.C. The average full-time minimum wage worker in Oregon will increase their wages by $675, while in D.C. that figure is $1,354.
Increasing the minimum wage continues to be a key policy for reducing inequality and creating a more equitable economy. For the workers impacted by the state increases, 19.6% are in poverty and 46.2% are below twice the poverty line. A disproportionate number of affected workers are women (57.6%), who make up less than half (48.4%) of the wage-earning workforce in the states with increases. Meanwhile, 13.7% of the affected workers are Black and 31.1% are Latino, despite making up 9.9% and 17.6% of the state workforces, respectively.
SOURCE: EPI
I am not against increasing the minimum wage or automatically adjusting it for inflation. What I am against is the misleading limited story being used to sell the increases.
A growing minimum wage causes increases in all wages – as noted above, the employers wage ladder must increase. Given the higher pay is not the only increase costs, this can’t be anything but inflationary.
Such changes have zero impact on inequality.
The bulk of minimum wage workers are employed by small businesses and the service industries.
Who earns the minimum wage?
Take a look at the data.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Kind of interesting that the fed says wage inflation needs to go down to decrease inflation, but the politicians keep raising wages… you can’t have both…
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Al Corrupt – The FED hates when wages go up, their profits go down. The FED does not want you to know that their endless money printing is the real reason for inflation. So, the FED will blame almost anything or anyone else, except the FED on the cause of inflation.
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While I agree that government (over)spending is the primary cause of inflation, wage inflation also contributes.
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Don’t forget about all the money the FED Banksters loan for all kinds of investments and questionable businesses. As do the interest rate increases, it all increases cost.. But the biggest problem we have is our debt economy, it lowers the standard of living of many households.
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Yes it does. Everything is connected somehow.
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