What would you buy for an extra $20 a week?
A nice meal? A car mount for your phone? An extra four gallons of gasoline?
That’s the choice that will be facing Arizonans at or near the bottom of the pay scale in January when the state’s minimum wage rises another 50 cents, to $14.35 an hour.
But the question of how many people actually are working below that minimum right now is less than clear, as inflation and a tight labor market has forced many employers to offer more than that just to get applicants in the door.
New figures reported Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor show that costs as measured by the Consumer Price Index rose 3.7% from between August 2022 and last month.
What makes that important is that laws approved by voters in 2006 and again in 2016 require annual inflation adjustments in the state minimum wage based on the August annual figures.
Rounded to the nearest nickel, as required by statute, that translates out to 50 cents an hour on top of the current $13.85 figure.
A formal announcement, however, won’t come until later this month. That’s when the state Industrial Commission, which has purview over the annual adjustment, has its regular meeting.
The latest state minimum wage hike comes after Tucsonans voted two years ago to impose their own $15-an-hour minimum wage by 2025.
That started at $13 in 2022, with the ordinance putting it at $13.50 in 2023. But with the state increase higher, Tucsonans got the benefit of $13.85.
It is set to go to $14.25 in 2024...
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