The U.S. Department of Labor released an announcement Wednesday. It pertains to the annual statement surrounding Executive Order 13658, which covers the minimum wage for contracted federal employees and minimum wage to be adjusted annually to cover the rising costs related to inflation.
In the announcement, the department said that the minimum wage would be increased from $10.95 to $11.25 per hour for hourly employees. This will be in effect starting January 1, 2022. For tipped employees, the minimum cash wage is $7.90 per hour. For contracted federal employees, the minimum wage will increase to $15 per hour per Executive Order 14026 called “Increasing the Minimum Wage for Federal Contractors.” The executive order was signed by President Joe Biden last April.
Aside from the pandemic, the low minimum wage is also a factor in why many states are suffering from a labor shortage crisis. A study was launched to find the most impacted states in the U.S. when it comes to this issue. CareerCloud organized the study, and they used the data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and CareerBuilder.
Per the findings, these are the top ten states that are impacted the most as to the labor shortage crisis. First is D.C., next is Nebraska, followed by New Hampshire, Vermont, and Utah. The sixth spot goes to South Dakota, followed by Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota. Georgia rounds up the top ten most affected states. The top ten least affected states are Hawaii, New York, California, Nevada, Connecticut, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arizona, New Jersey, and Illinois.
Although Arizona does not have an issue regarding the labor shortage crisis, they are reported to increase the hourly minimum wage from $12.15 to $12.80.
