RICHMOND, Va. — Some workers in Virginia are set to get a raise thanks to a law passed over four years ago.
“This is a positive step, considering how inflation affects people’s lives,” said Levi Goren, Research Director at the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, in an interview with 8News.
Starting January 1, 2025, Virginia’s minimum wage will increase from $12 to $12.41 per hour. This raise is the result of a 2020 law that requires the state’s minimum wage to be adjusted for inflation.
“This increase will add about $852 a year to the earnings of workers paid the minimum wage,” Goren explained.
The raise comes during a heated debate in Virginia about the minimum wage. Earlier this year, Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed bills that aimed to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2026. Youngkin argued that salaries and wages should be determined by the free market.
However, Goren believes that a minimum wage of at least $15 per hour is essential moving forward.
“The increase to $12.41 is a small improvement, but it’s not enough to cover basic living costs in Virginia, even for a single person without children,” Goren said. “Research from MIT shows that a single person in Virginia needs an average of $24 an hour to make ends meet.”
Thanks to the 2020 law, Virginia’s minimum wage will continue to rise with inflation in the coming years, even if lawmakers don’t agree on increasing it to $15 per hour.