Workers in these states just got a pay raise

The corks have been popped, the calendar pages turned and a day that promised fresh starts also brought with it some pay bumps for millions of Americans.

The corks have been popped, the calendar pages turned and a day that promised fresh starts also brought with it some pay bumps for millions of Americans. Hourly minimum wages increased in 21 states on Wednesday, as part of ongoing efforts to have pay keep up with the rising cost of living or to meet milestones such as a $15-an-hour minimum wage. The increases — which range from 18 cents to $1.75 (hello, Delaware) — are expected to affect more than 9.2 million workers, raising their pay by a combined $5.7 billion, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Additionally, about four dozen cities and municipalities (mostly in California, Colorado and Washington) hiked their minimum wages further above their respective state floors, according to EPI. “These additional earnings are critical for ensuring workers don’t lose ground due to rising prices, but the minimum wage level may still be too low, especially if the minimum wage was indexed years ago and not revisited since,” Sebastian Martinez Hickey, a state economic analyst for the EPI, wrote in a recent blog post on the topic. And that’s especially true after a period of rampant inflation that caused the cost of living to soar even higher. The pandemic and the economic recovery that followed further exacerbated the chasm between the haves and the have-nots. In turn, labor movement activity has swelled — as have pushes for a $17 federal minimum wage.