10/09/2008
As it will do every year as a result of the passage of Initiative 151 in 2006, the state of Montana announced this month that the minimum-wage rate will rise on Jan. 1, 2009.
The new rate will be $6.90 an hour, a 35¢ increase from its current $6.55. Furthermore, the federal minimum-wage rate will increase to $7.25 an hour on July 24, 2009, meaning Montana’s will go even higher by 2010.
Initiative 151 called for a state minimum-wage rate either greater than its own current rate or the federal rate, plus a cost-living-adjustment based on the U.S. City Average Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers for All Items. The new state rate will be announced every year by Sept. 30.
The formula the state uses for making its calculations can be found at http://erd.dli.mt.gov/laborstandard/documents/commishmwdeterm08.pdf.
“The new bounce followed by the quantum leaps in both the federal minimum-wage rate in the middle of next year and the state rate again by Jan. 1, 2010 could not be coming at a worse time,” said Riley Johnson, NFIB/Montana state director. “This is what happens when voters take the setting of the minimum-wage rate out of the hands of their own elected legislators and link it to a formula based on the consumer price index. What you get is a forever high spiraling of rates that do nothing but tamp down job growth.”
