Minimum wage rises: Low-pay workers to get bigger slice of pie
Thursday, July 24th, 2008
By Staff
Staff writer
Jamal Taylor has been looking forward to today for quite some time.
Thanks to today’s increase in the federal minimum wage, the 17-year-old Taco Bell worker is getting a raise.
But Michael Costello, who runs Primo Pizza on Raeford Road, has not been looking forward to this day. For him, the new wage requirement is the final straw that’s forcing Primo Pizza to raise its prices.
After a decade with no changes to the federal minimum wage, this is the second year in a row that the wage is going up. In North Carolina, the minimum wage rises from $6.15 an hour to $6.55. Next summer, it goes up again, to $7.25.
The increase comes at a welcome time for workers who are struggling with higher food bills and gas prices. Yet businesses are paying more these days, too, and they’re adding the new wage to a long list of expenses gnawing at their bottom lines.
“Small businesses are being squeezed,” Costello said. “We’re just happy that right now flour is only twice as much as it was last year. … In February, it was four and a half times what it had been. (more..)
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