Over 300,000 state workers to see salary hike

About 305,000 Louisiana workers will get a pay raise by the time the federal minimum wage increases to $7.15 per hour in two years, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

The change, included in a supplemental spending bill signed into law by President Bush, increases the current $5.15-per-hour minimum wage in three 70-cent increments, beginning this summer.

The number of workers affected in Louisiana by the increase is down from the 366,000 projected in 2005, mainly because the post-hurricane worker shortage has prompted employers to increase wages, especially in the service sector, said Liana Fox, an analyst for the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

The 305,000 workers represent those who make less than $7.15 an hour and will be guaranteed a wage increase by the time the new minimum wage is fully implemented in 2009, Fox said.

U.S. Rep. Charles Melancon, D-Napoleonville, said the increase was the right thing to do.

“Americans who put in a hard day’s work should not still live in poverty in the richest nation in the world,” Melancon said.

Melancon said the current minimum wage represents only $10,700 a year for a full-time worker. The full increase will bring that to just over $15,000 a year.

This is the first change since the minimum wage went from $4.75 to $5.15 on Sept. 1, 1997, under former President Clinton and a Republican-controlled Congress.