Employees Are Hopeful Minimum Wage Hike Will Help

By Mac McLean
Reporter / Bristol Herald Courier
Published: July 25, 2008

BRISTOL, Va. – Belinda Griffith will get a 55-cent-per-hour raise with this week’s paycheck, thanks to an increase in the federal minimum wage approved last year by the U.S. Congress.

In May 2007, Congress approved legislation raising the minimum wage to $7.25 per hour by the end of 2009. The second phase of the increase – which raises the wage from $5.85 to $6.55 – went into effect on Thursday.

Griffith has earned $6 per hour for the past four or five weeks that she’s worked as a cashier at Quick Stop No. 37 on Euclid Avenue.

She learned about the raise on Thursday.

“My manager brought it to my attention,” said Griffith, who spends her money paying bills and putting her 14-year-old daughter through school. “I hope it helps.”

Ten thousand workers in Tennessee and 5,000 workers in Virginia earned the minimum wage in 2007, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. A total of 70,000 people in both states earn less than the minimum wage last year because their incomes are based on tips, but they will also benefit from the increase.

Minimum wage earners were paid a base salary of $10,712 last year before any wage increases went into effect. Thursday’s increase will bring their base annual salary to $13,624.

“It ain’t worth it, though, because the cost of everything else is going up,” said Wayne Cross, who manages the Quick Stop and has had to raise prices because of inflation.

While the minimum wage has gone up by 27 percent since May 2007, wages were last raised in September 1997 – from $4.25 to $5.15.

Since September 1997, however, the consumer price index – a common measure of inflation used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics – has gone up by more than 39 percent.

Cross said he wasn’t sure if the wage increase would push prices even higher and said such a move would be up to his corporate office.

Kevin Adams, a manager at the Jersey Mike’s Subs on Volunteer Parkway, said each one of the business’ 15 employees would see a pay raise this week, even if they earned more than the minimum wage because an across-the-board raise would only be fair.

“Our employees are pretty good, so we don’t want them to feel like they’re getting the least amount,” Adams said, adding his company starts new employees at a wage about 15 cents above the minimum wage.

“We wouldn’t leave someone where they are if everybody else got a bump,” he said.

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