Arizona’s minimum wage is set to hit $14.70 per hour come January, a 35 cent jump.
The wage is tied to inflation, which the Bureau of Labor statistics announced was at 2.5% year over year.
At an unrelated economic development event on Wednesday, Gov. Katie Hobbs said the minimum wage is not livable for families.
"An appropriate wage is a wage that allows families to have a quality of life without working two or three jobs to keep food on the table. I don't know what that is. It's different in different areas," Hobbs said.
The reason for the increase is that Arizona voters have approved — twice — creating a state minimum wage separate from the federal figure of $7.25, a number that hasn't been raised since 1991. More to the point, those two initiatives require annual increases each year pegged to the annual inflation figures in the Consumer Price Index.
Workers in Tucson and Flagstaff, cities that adopted their own minimum wages, will receive higher pay than the rest of the state.
Tucsonans voted three years ago to enact their own minimum wage in multiple steps.
That is set to go to $15 an hour in 2025, with annual inflation adjustments after that And using that new $15 base, that means that, from now forward, wages will be higher in Tucson than the rest of the state.
In Flagstaff, the only other city with a local wage ordinance, the minimum already is $17.40 an hour. And with guaranteed inflation adjustments, workers there will be earning at least $17.85 in January.
In fact, it always will be higher that the state wage no matter what: The Flagstaff ordinance saying the minimum wage there has to be at least $2 an hour higher than the state mandate.
