Yesterday, the State House of Representatives passed a bill that would increase the Indiana minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.50 per hour by 2008. The bill would increase the state minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $6.00 per hour on September 1, 2007. Then, on March 1 2008, the rate would increase to $6.75 per hour. Finally, on September 1 2008, the rate would increase to $7.50 per hour. The bill passed out of committee with a vote of 7 to 5. All the Democrats voted in favor of the bill, while all the Republicans voted against it.
The current Indiana minimum wage is just $5.15 per hour, equal to the federal minimum wage. Both have been at that level for almost a decade. A minimum wage increase was a hot topic in the 2006 mid-term elections, in Indiana and elsewhere.
Indiana is one of 15 U. S. states with the state minimum wage set at the same level as the federal minimum wage. This puts the Indianan minimum wage in the bottom 42% of state minimum wages. Other states with a minimum wage of $5.15 include Kentucky, New Hampshire, Georgia, Nebraska and Texas. Five states in the union, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, South Carolina and Alabama, have no minimum wage at all. In Kansas, the state minimum wage is just $2.65 per hour. (No, that’s not a typo.)
The states surrounding Indiana have higher minimum wages. Illinois, for example, recently passes a law to increase the $6.50 minimum wage to $7.50 later this year. Under the same bill, the Illinois minimum wage would increase to $8.00 by 2009. The surrounding states of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and West Virginia al have minimum wages between $5.85 and $6.95.
There are approximately 37,000 minimum wage workers in Indiana, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s about 2% of Indiana’s 1.8 million workers.
