Minimum wages will increase in 19 states at the start of the year, a shift that will lift pay for millions of individuals and shed light on a long-running debate about whether mandated pay increases at the bottom do more harm or good for workers.
In Massachusetts, the minimum wage will rise $1, to $11 an hour, affecting about 291,000 workers. In California, the minimum goes up 50 cents, to $10.50 an hour, boosting pay for 1.7 million people.
Wages are also going up in many Republican-led states, where politicians have often been skeptical of the benefits of minimum-wage increases.
In Arizona, one out of every nine workers is set to receive a wage increase—a move firms are challenging in court. So will tens of thousands of workers in Arkansas, Michigan and Ohio, all states that backed GOP President-elect Donald Trump in November.
“Some of what Trump tapped into was people wanting to be paid more,” said David Cooper, analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. “Voting for a minimum-wage increase is one of the ways to make that happen for a lot people.”
In all, about 4.3 million low-wage workers across the country are slated to receive a raise because they earn less than the new minimum in their respective states, according to EPI.
Economists and policy makers are of two views on the costs and benefits of minimum-wage rises. While the policy puts more money in the pockets of low-wage workers, it gives employers less incentive to add to their payrolls, leaving some workers behind.
A 2014 study by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would reduce job creation by 500,000 over two years. At the same time, the report estimated the increase in the federal minimum would raise the pay of 16.5 million workers who kept their jobs.
Wage increases caused Swampscott, Mass., candy maker Bacci Chocolate Design Inc., parent of the CB Stuffer brand, to sell its retail store, which employed about five part-time workers, in 2015 and invest about $50,000 in equipment to automate routine tasks at its production facility, said owner Erin Calvo-Bacci.
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