Colorado Minimum Wage Will Drop By 4 Cents With Cost Of Living

Colorado Minimum Wage Will Drop By 4 Cents WIth Cost Of Living

As the consumer pricing index continues to fall, the State of Colorado will become the first state since 1938 to lower it's minimum wage.

From the AP:

The state Department of Labor and Employment ordered the wage down from $7.28 to $7.24. That's lower than the federal minimum wage of $7.25, so most minimum wage workers will lose 3 cents an hour.

Colorado is one of 10 states where the minimum wage is tied to inflation. The indexing is thought to protect low-wage workers from having flat wages as the cost of living goes up.

But because Colorado's provision allows wage declines, the minimum wage will drop because of a falling consumer price index. It will be the first decrease in any state since the federal minimum wage law was passed in 1938.

The Denver Post reports that the drop is a result of the first fall in consumer price index in decades:

The minimum wage rate is recalibrated each year based on the Denver-Boulder-Greeley Consumer Price Index, which fell 0.6 percent between the first half of 2008 and the first half of 2009. Last year, that index rose 3.9 percent, but it is now on track to record its first annual decline since its start in 1965.

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