Four red states pass minimum wage hikes

Every state with a minimum-wage measure on the ballot approved the increases Tuesday night, including four where voters came out in large numbers for Republican candidates.

The ballot initiatives passed in Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota — and sometimes by a wide margin. 

{mosads}Alaska will gradually raise its minimum wage to $9.75 an hour by 2016, Nebraska will raise it to $9 by 2016, South Dakota will increase to $8.50 next year and Arkansas’s would rise to the same amount by 2017.

South Dakota, Arkansas and Nebraska all elected Republican senators and governors, and Republican Dan Sullivan leads Democratic Sen. Mark Begich in Alaska.

“This is not a partisan issue for working folks, but a practical one. People understand that $7.25 is not nearly enough to make ends meet, and that wages must allow hard-working families to raise their children in economic security,” Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Project Action Fund, said in a statement. 

The minimum wages in Alaska and South Dakota will continue to rise based on inflation.

Illinois voters also passed a nonbinding initiative that advises their state legislature to raise the minimum wage to $10 in 2015.

None of these plans is quite as high as President Obama’s proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10, but they are higher than the current federal level of $7.25.

Also Tuesday, the city of San Francisco increased its local minimum wage to $15.