What a terrible time to increase it. This is just another cost that will be forwarded to the consumer, not to mention businesses that pay minimum wage (probably for a good reason, like low profits) will have to cut back on their hiring or even go ahead with layoffs.

This is interesting, because the poverty line is right around $16,000 right now. The new minimum wage will pull many people over it. I wonder if this is an attempt to skew statistics?

Either way, I think that the increase in minimum wage means an increase in everything else. Like groceries and gas. Which means a tighter budget for me.

I'm all for the poor,and low scale worker, but this is the wrong time. If your not watching your increase's as of yet, hold on, you will see something happen that never happened in the great Depression.

John

A bunch of well-off cheapskates commenting here. Sorry giving your local unskilled worker a barely-living wage will make your groceries a little higher! My God.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 2.2 million Americans being paid minimum wage, and 50% of those are under the age of 25 (i.e. teen/college kids). The number of people making minimum wage in the states that don't have higher mandates likely totals around one million, so your "millions" statement is incorrect.

Last year on July 24, federal minimum wage increased from $5.85 to $6.55, an 11% increase, so a 10.7% raise this year is not quite rare.

While a brand-new McDonalds line worker will probably make minimum wage or slightly higher, workers there receive overtime pay and raises just as in other industries.

Increasing the minimum wage decreases the number of jobs/hours available for people with no skills, making it harder for them to gain skills that they can use to earn promotions and better jobs in the future.

I hear this a lot. When the economy is good, we can't raise the minimum wage because everything's fine and we don't want to mess with it. When the economy is bad, we can't raise minimum wage because the economy might get worse. Some people can never be happy.

The minimum wage of a couple of years ago--$5.15, I think--was brutal. My husband had to work for it for a while. We worked the first three weeks of the month to make rent money, and visited the food bank regularly.

The minimum wage hike is a good thing. Debate about the timing is a red herring.

Hi! Actually, it would be great to find a minimum wage job right now. My son , 18 has applied lots of places, all that are taking applications & hasn't had 1 phone call in 6 months.

Only 3% of workers will be impacted by this many of whom only work part time. Less than 40% of people live in states impacted by the change. Smartmoney said it will mean a $1.6B increase in pay which is a tiny drop in the bucket for our national economy.

At a cost of $1.6B that equates to $5 per person. If you cut the $1.6B off of corporate profits it would be a 0.1% drop.

This isn't the best time for such an increase so I could see delaying it a year or two. But it certainly won't have all that much impact.

Your 1979 $15,080 would now be $47,000 as there has been 311% inflation since 1979!!!!! Thus comparing your $15,000 from 30 years ago to today makes absolutely no logical sense.

If you want to think a little more deeply about it, just follow the numbers (and consequences)
Minimum wage goes up, there is much rejoicing until a bunch of employers and small businesses lay folks off in an attempt to control costs. In any business HR accounts for the biggest line item cost. It just jumped by a little more than 10%, so it's time to cut back a bit.
Those at minimum wage will have a bit more money, until the cost of goods and services go up in order to back the increased cost of employing people. This will happen very, very fast and it will happen across the board.
The price of a loaf of bread will go up by about 10%. That leaves the minimum wage earner with exactly the same amount of buying power that he had before the increase, if he got to keep his job. The numbers were just shuffled.
The only realistic way for a minimum wage earner to increase his buying power is by hard work and proving to potential employers that the minimum wage earner is worth more.
What's more, those of us who do not earn minimum wage will be hurt because the inevitable inflation will happen much faster than our payraises, actually lowering our purchasing power.
Minimum wage should be indexed to inflation, that way we won't have a big shock to the system.

I work in a restaurant for barely above minimum wage which means that the new law will mean a small increase in my hourly pay rate. Unfortunately that won't do me or my family any good because my job is already reducing the number of days a week I (and many others like me) can work. I had to practically beg for 3 days of work this week even though I'm available every day. So things are only going to get worse for me and with the inevitable decrease in business that fall will bring, I am very concerned.

In the 59's, 60's and 70's the minimum wage was raised every few years by 20 - 50 cents/hour. No one noticed or complained. The wage equaled the poverty level for a family of 3, and 1/2 the average hourly wage. The economy was great. Then The Reagan/Bush Administration refused to raise it for 10 years. Inflation rose sky-high during that time. The value of the minimum wage dropped to 80% of the poverty level. That's when we started seeing homeless on the streets. A living wage should provide enough wages to pay for an average efficiency apartment, using 1/3 of those wages for housing. In my neighborhood that would be about $10.00/hour. The best way to stimulate the economy is to provide workers enough wages to buy the products they are manufacturing. Henry Ford knew this. He paid his workers a living wage.

That is a coincidence that you mentioned working for a law firm. I am currently working for a law firm myself and making around $25,000.00 a year. That is not minimum wage, but I can say I am happy to get that also.

Furthermore, I have always thought what might be a comfortable amount of money now, might not be in the near future.