Arizona's Minimum Wage Workers Get A Raise In 2020

ARIZONA — A new calendar year means a boost in the paychecks of minimum-wage American workers in more than 20 states, including Arizona, where new minimum wage standards take effect in 2020. (The New York minimum wage raise goes into effect Dec. 31, 2019, however.)

In Arizona, the 2020 minimum wage rate of $12 an hour takes effect on Jan. 1, 2020. That compares with a minimum wage of $11 in 2019. Tipped employees received a minimum wage of $8 in 2019, which will rise to $9 in 2020. The minimum wage raises both years are based on the 2016 voter-approved Proposition 206, which first took effect in July 2017. (The Proposition 206 "Fair Wages and Healthy Families Act" additionally mandates that all Arizona employees are paid earned sick time benefits by their employers.)

Proposition 206 doesn't stop Arizona towns, cities or counties from invoking their own higher minimum wages either, as city of Flagstaff voters did in 2017. Next year, Flagstaff workers will earn $13 per hour minimum, and that figure will rise to $2 higher than the Arizona minimum wage or to $15 on Jan. 1, 2021 — whichever amount is higher.

Meanwhile, the federal minimum wage rate has remained unchanged at $7.25 an hour since 2009.

The 21 states enacting minimum wage hikes are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, South Dakota, Vermont and Washington. The information was compiled by govdocs.com, a website that curates government documents on employment law for companies worldwide.

The highest of the new rates is in Washington State, where a 2016 voter-approved ballot initiative called for a $13.50 minimum wage floor in 2020, nearly twice the federal minimum wage. The Washington rate is up from $12 an hour in 2019. There is no provision in the law for tipped employees.

Several other states boosted minimum wage to $12 an hour, and several also increased the floor only modestly. For example, Florida’s minimum wage goes up less than 25 cents per hour, to $8.46, from $8.25 an hour in 2019.

The analysis showed widespread disparity in how minimum wage workers who are tipped are treated. In New Mexico, for example, the 2020 minimum wage for tipped employees is $2.35 an hour, compared with $9 and $8.98 an hour, respectively, in neighboring states Arizona and Colorado.