The governments of the United States over the past 6 or so years have been criticized heavily by media and employees alike for not being able to raise the minimum wage which stood at 7.25 dollars an hour. However 14 states and several other cities have took it upon themselves to take action and raise the wages.
14 states increasing the minimum wage:
California and Massachusetts are the two states that have raised the wage the most substantially. Now for both the states, the wage stands at 10 dollars instead of the previous 9 dollar minimum wage. The lowest increase has been made by Arkansas, where now the wage that you will always get stands at 8 US dollars. South Dakota sees the lowest level of increase and their wage now stands at 8.55 US dollars.
This is not something that has just happened overnight. Rather there were many “living wage” protests happening across many of these states and cities that have eventually led the state governments to take actions in this regard. These protests happened as a result of collective efforts of thousands of people across 270 cities and where they demanded a 15 dollars per hour wage, they are hopeful that at-least there have been steps taken.
These increases entail that across the 14 states, the minimum wage is at-least a little over 9 dollars. There are some states that are giving even higher wages and this is always something satisfying to know about. The protests haven’t halted completely with people demanding further increases but their rate has declined somewhat. Here’s hoping that things continue in this manner and we are able to see fruitful results in the future too.
