Minimum Wage Increase to $8.00 Impacts California
What businesses will be hit hardest? Could it be yours?

Through a deal struck earlier this month between Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state legislature, California's minimum wage will increase to an hourly rate to $8.00 in 2008, with two hikes leading up to that mark.

The first hike since early 2004, it will raise the state minimum wage to $8.00 from $6.75. Workers will get a 75-cent increase January 1, 2007 and an additional 50 cents on January 1, 2008.

After vetoing two earlier attempts to raise the minimum wage, Governor Schwarzenegger called the recent approval "a common sense" solution. The jump to $7.50 in 2007 will make the state's minimum wage the nation's fourth-highest, trailing those of Washington, Oregon and Connecticut, according to the California Federation of Labor. The federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour.

Click Here to read the Los Angeles Times coverage


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