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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

WA Minimum Wage Workers Get a Boost with the New Year

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Friday, January 5, 2007   

Washington's minimum-wage workers got a 30 cent an hour cost-of-living increase beginning this week, giving the state the best minimum wage in the nation. John Burbank with the Economic Opportunity Institute in Seattle says the annual increase is good for everyone in the state.

"Low-wage people tend to spend that money in their local neighborhoods, restaurants and grocery stores. So, in fact, what this minimum wage increase can do is bring more money into the local economies."

He adds the voter-approved automatic annual increase is critical because of the rising costs of housing, gas and health care.

"It's good for low-wage workers. It enables them to keep up with inflation."

Critics of the minimum wage increase had argued it will cost the state jobs, but Burbank notes that the restaurant and health care industries, which tend to employ large numbers of low-wage workers, have enjoyed strong job growth since voters approved automatic minimum wage hikes in 1998. The wage now stands at $7.93 an hour.





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