Arkansas voters approve minimum wage hike


Voters in Arkansas have approved a ballot measure that will increase the state's minimum wage to $8.50 an hour by 2017, from $6.25 an hour now.
The minimum wage is currently $1 less than the federal level of $7.25. The proposal made it to the ballot after supporters submitted 62,000 signatures from voters, and survived a lawsuit challenging the validity of the signatures.
The first increase to $7.50 will become effective in January 2015. The last increase to the minimum wage in Arkansas was in 2006, when it was raised to $6.25 an hour, from $5.15. Earlier this year, the Advocates for Arkansas Children and Families released a study saying that close to 170,000 people would be affected by an increase in the minimum wage, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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