42,000 may gain from minimum-wage boost

Hourly pay will rise to $6.55 from $5.85 in the secondof three annual increases.

Statesman staff - Idaho Statesman

Published: 07/23/08


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Thursday's 70-cent increase in the hourly minimum wage will boost paychecks for almost 22,000 more jobs across Idaho on top of nearly 20,000 that were affected by the initial increase a year ago, the Idaho Labor Department said Tuesday.

Department analysts estimate workers in nearly 42,000 jobs overall - 6.5 percent of the more than 640,000 jobs covered by unemployment insurance in the state - are paid below the new minimum wage of $6.55 an hour. That includes last year's 20,000 jobs affected when the state and federal minimum wages rose from $5.15 to $5.85 an hour.

The average wage in Idaho was $16.73 an hour in 2007.

The increase, the second in a three-phase plan that ends a year from now with the final 70-cent increase to $7.25 an hour, will cost employers about $24.6 million over the next 12 months, just over a tenth of a percent of their total annual payroll of more than $22 billion.

In southwestern Idaho, only about 5.5 percent of all jobs will be affected.

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