Inflation will push New Jersey’s minimum wage above $14 in January

August 5, 2022 | newjerseymonitor.com

Business leaders say the number of vacant positions available nationwide has led business owners to offer more than the minimum wage to attract applicants. (Photo by New Jersey Monitor)

Surging prices will prompt a first-of-its-kind inflation adjustment to New Jersey’s minimum wage in January, pushing the state’s wage floor a few pennies above the $14-an-hour minimum that had been scheduled to go into effect.

But while the inflation adjustment, which was written into the 2019 law that will hike the minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2024, will help some very low-income residents keep up with rising prices, it won’t raise their purchasing power past where it was at the start of this year.