As NJ Hits Goal of $15 Minimum Wage, There’s Talk of an Even Bigger Hike

January 16, 2024 | njspotlightnews.org

Credit: Image by Jerry Nettik from Pixabay

The minimum hourly wage is now over $15 for the first time in New Jersey, thanks to a $1 increase that took effect on Jan. 1, immediately lifting take-home pay for an estimated 350,000 hourly workers. 

But as Gov. Phil Murphy and fellow Democrats who control both houses of the Legislature celebrate a policy achievement years in the making, many have begun asking whether more should be done for the state’s lowest-wage workers.

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NJ SEED: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Inflation Calculator, says a worker would need $18.28 today to buy what $15 got in 2019, when New Jersey’s minimum wage was $8.85. But why stop there? Why not $25, or $30 or $50. After all some, it seems, believe that minimum wage increases don’t have any effect on the private sector’s ability to produce marketable goods and services.