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By Mark Koba, Senior Editor
CNBC, Feb 12, 2014

After eight years of working for $9 an hour at the Pentagon Courtyard cafe, Jerome Hardy will likely get a raise. That's because President Obama is signing an executive order Wednesday raising the hourly minimum wage for federally contracted workers to $10.10. ... "This will definitely help me out financially," said the 52-year-old Hardy, who works as a chef and lives with his parents near Capitol Hill. "I live paycheck to paycheck, and It's been hard to survive on $9 an hour." ...

The executive order to raise the minimum pay from $7.25 an hour will affect workers starting next January, and applies to new contracts and replacements for expiring contracts. ...

Some business owners see a minimum wage hike as simply the right thing to do.

"If a company is getting a contract paid for by federal taxpayer dollars, it makes perfect sense that they pay a $10.10 minimum wage. Fair wages are part of the formula for success at my company," said Jon Cooper, president of Spectronics a manufacturer of ultraviolet equipment which has sold products to the U.S. military and NASA. ...

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