Minimum wage will rise in these 21 states, 35 localities in 2022
This was the year that low-wage workers finally gained significant bargaining power and wielded it to snare big pay increases.
But that’s not stopping many states and cities from cementing at least some of those advances into law.
Twenty-one states and 35 cities and counties are set to raise their minimum wages on or about New Year’s Day, according to a report provided exclusively to USA TODAY by the National Employment Law Project (NELP), a worker advocacy group.
Base hourly pay will climb from $11 to $12 in Illinois; from $9.25 to $10.50 in Delaware; from $9.50 to $11 in Virginia; from $12 to $13 for most workers in New Jersey; and from $10.50 to $11.50 in New Mexico.
Since some governments will act later in the year, a total of 25 states and 56 localities – a record 81 jurisdictions – will lift their pay floors sometime in 2022, according to NELP.
A base wage of $15 an hour or higher, derided as the pipe dream of striking fast-food workers just a few years ago, is becoming commonplace. California’s minimum will reach $15 for the first time on Jan. 1 for large employers. New York state – already at $15 in New York City and for fast-food workers statewide – will extend that benchmark to Long Island and Westchester County on New Year’s Eve.
Four of the localities lifting their pay floors Jan. 1 will hit the $15 threshold for the first time: Denver, which is leaping from $14.77 to $15.87, and the California cities of San Diego, Oakland and West Hollywood.
An additional 27 cities and towns already at $15 will climb even higher in a couple of weeks, as California’s Mountain View and Sunnyvale both reach $17.10 and Seattle edges up to $17.27 for most employers.
Minimum wage in Oakland
In Oakland, Evelia Domingo, 23, works full time at a local Jack in the Box, earning the city’s $14.36 hourly minimum. She lives in a two-bedroom apartment with her father and two sisters, splitting the $3,000 monthly household expenses with her father, a construction worker.
Although they can pay the bills, Domingo says she has no money for discretionary spending such as dining out.
“I would like to go out and take my family out but I can’t because I don’t have enough money for anything that isn’t household expenses,” she said through a translator. “I don’t like to go shopping because I see things I want but can’t afford.”
On New Year’s Day, Oakland’s base wage will rise to $15.06, netting Domingo an extra $112 a month. She plans to give the money to her father to cover the electric and water bills so he can send more cash to Domingo’s mother, who is ill and lives in Guatemala. The slightly larger paycheck also could help the family put away some money to eventually move to a bigger apartment.
“I want to be able to help if I can,” she said.
But there will be no frills. Domingo says she would need an additional $5 an hour bump in pay to afford other things she’d like to do, such as saving up for a car, helping pay for her sister to attend college, going out and buying clothes. “Everything just feels impossible,” she said.
Yannet Lathrop, a researcher and policy analyst at NELP, says $15 provides just a living wage in…
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