By Danielle Kurtzleben
US News & World Report, Nov 6, 2013
The minimum wages in one state and one city are about to creep higher, due to the passage of two ballot measures Tuesday night. New Jersey voted to raise its minimum wage from the federally mandated $7.25 to $8.25 per hour and to impose annual cost-of-living increases. That measure passed with a strong 61 percent support. In SeaTac, a suburb of Seattle, voters also chose to boost the minimum wage for some workers to $15, nearly $6 above the current Washington state minimum wage of $9.19 per hour. Early returns show that measure passed with 54 percent of the vote, according to the Seattle Times. The SeaTac wage increase would affect only workers who work at or around SeaTac airport, like baggage handlers and food service workers. ...
[OPINION: The American Dream Is Built on Fair Wages]
Many more voters nationwide will likely see minimum wage on the ballot in the near future. Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Minnesota all have either bills or ballot initiatives "underway or expected" during the course of the next year, according to Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, an advocacy group that supports a higher federal minimum wage. And even an opponent of raising that wage, acknowledges there is a very real possibility of those measures passing. ...
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