State Minimum Wage Rises

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reached a compromise with Democrats and signed a bill that will give 1 million of the lowest paid workers a raise of $1.25 over the next 15 months.

On Jan. 1, California’s hourly minimum wage will rise to $7.50 an hour and eventually to $8 one year later.

California’s minimum wage is now the eighth-highest in the nation and will climb to fourth place in 2007. It will offer the highest minimum wage in the country in 2008. With full the increase, workers will make $16,640 a year.

The minimum pay raise is the first since 2002, when then-Gov. Gray Davis approved an 8 percent increase. Schwarzenegger has twice rejected a measure to raise the minimum raise before.

U.S. Census Bureau statistics show that 82 percent of workers who earn within the $1.25 of the minimum wage are not teenagers but adults between the ages of 20 and 64.

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