RI Minimum Wage Hike Means $12.4M For Workers: Analysis

A minimum wage bump will see more than $12.4 million in additional pay for Rhode Island workers in 2019. That's according to an analysis by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, which studied all the minimum wage boosts 20 states are seeing this year.

The analysis said 19,800 workers will see an extra $0.40 cents in their paycheck this year - not exactly monumental, but an average increase of about $630 over the year, EPI said.

The pay bumps aren’t too much larger in other states, ranging from as low as a nickel raise in Alaska to $1 in Maine and Massachusetts. California companies with more than 25 workers must also give minimum wage workers a $1-an-hour increase.

Rhode Island was one of six states, including California, Delaware, Massachusetts, Michigan and New York, where lawmakers passed the minimum increase wage increase.

Eight states — Alaska, Florida, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, South Dakota and Vermont — increased minimum wages automatically to keep up with inflation. This is intended to ensure those workers don’t lose buying power from year to year.

The remaining six states — Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Missouri and Washington — saw their minimum wages climb due to voter ballots.

“In recent years, as federal and state lawmakers in many states have failed to update minimum wages, voters have taken up the charge themselves, passing wage increases at the ballot box,” the authors of the blog post wrote.

The EPI said minimum wage increases are one of the most straightforward ways to boost pay for the lowest-earning workers. A “flurry” of similar increases in recent years have led to “sizable gains” in wages for millions nationwide.

“After decades of policy choices that have suppressed wage growth for the most workers, it is encouraging that policymakers and voters have increasingly embraced this simple and effective policy tool,” the author wrote.Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.

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