Legislation to increase the state minimum to will be up for a vote today in the House of Delegates. The bill, which originally gradually raised the minimum wage to $8.50, will now raise it to $8.75. Previously, we showed that an increase to $8.50 would give a raise to approximately 113,000 West Virginian workers. Now, with the new proposal, we’ve re-run the numbers and here are the results:
Raising West Virginia’s minimum wage to $8.75 would affect about 127,000 workers. 62% of the affected workers are women, and 68% are over the age of 25. The average age of the affected worker is 35. 54% of the affected workers are either married or a parent, and 60% work full time. 85% are at least a high school graduate and 39% have at least some college education. 34% have a family income of less than $25,000, and the average family income is between $30,000 and $35,000. 44,000 children have at least one parent who would be affected by the increase.
