By Amy Yee
Chicago Sun Times, December 31, 2024. Also WBEZ Chicago

Illinois will raise its minimum wage by $1 on Wednesday to $15 per hour, joining more than 20 states increasing minimum hourly wages in 2025. ...

The federal minimum wage has stayed at $7.25 per hour since July 24, 2009, — the longest period in history without a raise, according to the national coalition Business for a Fair Minimum Wage. The group, citing the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator, said purchasing power has “eroded greatly” since peaking in 1968 when the...

By Steve Kirch
KTUU-TV (Alaska's News Source), December 31, 2024

Workers in Alaska can anticipate two pay raises in 2025, along with a new benefit that was not available in 2024, as a result of two ballot measures passed over the last ten years. The Alaska minimum wage will increase from $11.73 to $11.91 in 2025, starting on New Year’s Day. This change is due to a ballot initiative passed by voters in 2014, which allows for annual adjustments based on inflation. However, on July 1, 2025, wages will again increase to $13 per hour...

By Juliana Kaplan
Business Insider, December 31, 2024

Workers in 21 states are set to start the new year with a raise. ...

Mike Draper, the owner and founder of screen-printing and retail business RAYGUN, whose 10 stores include a location in Missouri, told Business Insider that minimum wage increases — like the one recently approved by that state's voters —could help bolster workers' spending power. Draper already pays his workers a starting wage of $15.50 an hour.

"This is different from a tax increase, or a rent increase, or a cost of goods increase...

By Jaxon White
LNP/Lancaster Online, December 31, 2024

Three Democratic state lawmakers gathered in Lancaster on Tuesday to renew their call for a higher statewide minimum wage, which has remained at $7.25 per hour since 2009. Lancaster state Rep. Izzy Smith-Wade-El, along with Sen.-elect Patty Kim, of Harrisburg, and Sen. Art Haywood, of Montgomery County, said at a press conference that they plan to introduce legislation to more than double the current rate to $15 an hour and include an annual cost-of-living adjustment tied to the rate of inflation.

“If you want the labor of...

By Danny Klein
FSR Magazine, December 31, 2024

The restaurant industry is no stranger to having a crisis on its plate. That’s the nature of day-to-day, in-the-trenches hospitality and navigating macro battles for the country’s second-largest employer. But 2024 had a unique tilt that felt like the apex of years of post-COVID reactions. ... In plainer terms, restaurants grappled with hiking food and labor and the need to satisfy customers who had grown weary of price hikes. ...

The company [Restaurant365] tapped data from more than 6,200 restaurant and café locations ahead of the calendar...

By Eloise Goldsmith
Common Dreams, December 30, 2024. Also Connecticut Business Herald

With 23 states and the District of Columbia slated to increase their minimum wages by the end of 2025, the national network Business for a Fair Minimum Wage reports that business owners in states around the country are cheering those increases, saying they will boost consumer spending and hiring, increase productivity, help retain employees, and in general strengthen the economy.

According to a statement Business for a Fair Minimum Wage issued on December 12, the following states will have either a planned or...

By Elyse Schoenig
KSHB 41 TV, December 30, 2024

Missouri's minimum wage will increase from $12.30 to $13.75 an hour on January 1st. The wage increase is part of Proposition A, which Missouri voters approved in November. ...

“I feel like I have peace of mind being able to care for my family,” Cassidy Caraway, Oddly Correct cafe manager in Kansas City, said. “Especially because we have children, just knowing that we'll always have food for them and I can show up to work and like, be paid something that is livable.”

Mike Schroeder, the...

By Jill Lamkins
KMTV (CBS 3 Omaha), December 29, 2024

OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — The minimum wage in Nebraska is increasing in the new year. Starting January 1st, those who make the current wage of $12 an hour will now make $13.50. ...

Soley Joe has been working at the clothing store Raygun for a few months. As a shift lead, she gets paid $17 an hour. ...

Prior to that, Joe was a barista working while she was in college at Dunkin' Donuts for $13 an hour, then Starbucks for $15 an hour.

"At...

Business for a Fair Minimum Wage Press Release
Yonkers Times (NY), December 27, 2024

Twenty-one states will raise their minimum wage on New Year’s Day as the calendar turns to 2025. Two other states and the District of Columbia have increases scheduled later in the year. Business owners across the country are welcoming the increases, saying they will boost consumer spending, increase productivity, improve hiring, employee retention and customer service, and strengthen local economies.

Hundreds of business owners in Missouri and Alaska worked with Business for a Fair Minimum Wage to support November 2024 ballot initiatives in their...

By Mili Mansaray
Kansas City Beacon, December 26, 2024. Also Springfield News Leader, Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri Business Alert, KCUR (NPR) Kansas City

A voter-mandated pay hike for Missouri’s minimum wage workers hasn’t kicked in yet — and conservative lawmakers and business groups are looking to the General Assembly and the courts to block the raise. ...

Mike Draper is the owner of Raygun Clothing, which has stores employing 105 people in Kansas City; Des Moines, Iowa; Chicago; and Omaha and Lincoln in Nebraska.

Draper is a member of Missouri Business for a Healthy Economy...

By Alex DeMarban
Anchorage Daily News, December 25, 2024. Also Yahoo News, Kansas City Star, Idaho Statesman, Wichita Eagle, Lexington Herald Leader, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Tacoma News Tribune, Sacramento Bee, Miami Herald, Raleigh News & Observer, more.

In the weeks after Ballot Measure 1 passed by a hefty margin, many Alaska employers are beginning to understand its impacts. ...

Mark Robokoff, owner of AK Bark pet supply store in Anchorage, was part of a coalition of small businesses that supported the measure. He said he believes the measure will improve the Alaska economy —...

By Thomas C. Zambito
LoHud (Rockland/Westchester Journal News) and Yahoo News,  December 19, 2024. Also Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Utica Observer Dispatch, Poughkeepsie Journal, Times Herald-Record (Middletown), Daily Messenger (Canandaigua)

New York’s minimum wage gets a 50-cent bump in January, to $16.50 in Westchester, New York City and Long Island and $15.50 in the rest of the state. This will be the first of two 50-cent increases that will bring the minimum wage to $17 downstate and $16 farther north by 2026. ...

New York joins 20 other states that will increase their minimum wage...

By David Winzelberg
Long Island Business News, December 13, 2024

As the minimum wage is set to climb again, small business and labor groups continue to clash on the issue. The minimum wage will increase on Jan. 1 to $16.50 an hour on Long Island, New York City and Westchester County, while the minimum wage for the rest of New York State rises to $15.50 an hour at the same time. ...

“The minimum wage should be increased as rising costs on Long Island still remain a barrier to living, playing and working here,” said...

By: Charlie Keegan
KSHB 41 TV, Kansas City, MO, December 11, 2024

A group of industry leaders in Missouri is asking the state's Supreme Court to throw out the results of November's election on Proposition A.

"I don’t believe voters had a real understanding of what they were voting for," said Buddy Lahl, CEO of the Missouri Restaurant Association. ...

Andi Montee co-owns Mokaska Coffee in downtown St. Joseph. The business threw its support behind Proposition A. Montee said the lawsuit was a surprise.

"I feel like it's really trying to get this removed on...

By Samantha Walker
KOAM TV, Joplin, MO, December 11, 2024

Starting Jan. 1st minimum wage in Missouri is set to increase to $13.75 an hour -  and in two years get up to $15.

But Missouri business groups have now filed a legal challenge to the newly passed proposition.

Groups like Business for a Fair Minimum wage support the proposition, in a news release saying "business owners across the state say the minimum wage increase will boost consumer spending and strengthen Missouri's workforce, businesses and economy." ...

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