Ikea is announcing a pretty hefty raise for hourly workers at its 38 U.S. stores. The middlebrow Swedish furniture and housewares purveyor isn't instituting a uniform minimum wage, but will raise pay based on cost of living. The new average starting wage of $10.76 an hour, The New York Times reports, includes the floor of $8.69 an hour for workers in Pittsburgh and West Chester, Ohio, to $13.22 an hour in Woodbridge, Va., not too far outside of the Washington Beltway.
The wage increase will increase the pay for about half of Ikea's 13,120 U.S. employees. The average wage in Sweden, by the way, is about $52 an hour, the highest in Europe, according to a 2013 report from Germany's statistics agency. Statistics Sweden puts the average hourly wage a little lower, at about $23.25 an hour.
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