JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Three former state labor commissioners are promoting an increase in Alaska’s minimum wage.
Ed Flanagan, Tom Cashen and Jim Sampson are behind a proposed initiative to raise the minimum wage from the current $7.75 an hour to $8.75 an hour effective Jan. 1, 2015. It would go to $9.75 an hour a year later and be adjusted for inflation annually after that.
In 2002, the Legislature pre-empted a proposed initiative that would have allowed for the minimum wage to be adjusted for inflation. A year after passing the bill, lawmakers stripped the inflation adjustment requirement.
The Legislature in 2009 passed a measure stating that, beginning in 2010, the minimum wage had to be at least 50 cents more than the federal minimum wage. That’s where it stands currently.
