Michigan's Minimum-Wage Boost: Expectations for 2024 Wages

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In Michigan, employees on minimum wage will experience a slight uptick in their earnings come January 1, 2024. As part of Michigan's Improved Workforce Opportunity Wage Act of 2018, the minimum wage rate will ascend from $10.10 to $10.33 per hour, marking an incremental increase.

The revised wage structure for January 1, 2024, entails several adjustments:

The minimum hourly wage escalates to $10.33 per hour.
For minors aged 16 and 17, the 85% rate elevates to $8.78 per hour.
Tipped employees will witness an increase in their hourly pay rate, now set at $3.93 per hour.

The training wage for newly hired employees aged 16 to 19 remains static at $4.25 per hour for their initial 90 calendar days of employment.
Despite this raise, the $10.33 hourly wage still falls short of meeting what is deemed a livable wage in Michigan.

As indicated by MIT's Living Wage Calculator, which assesses the minimum earnings necessary to support oneself, an adult without children should ideally earn at least $16.27 per hour. For an adult supporting one child, this figure soars to $36.81 per hour, underscoring the gap between the current minimum wage and the actual requirements for sustaining a household in Michigan.

This move toward a higher minimum wage prompts a discussion around whether this increase adequately addresses the needs of workers and their financial sustainability. The disparity between the mandated minimum wage and the estimated living wage underscores the ongoing debate surrounding the adequacy of wages to meet the basic needs of individuals and families in Michigan.