No state minimum wage increase for new year

Michigan Public | By Lester Graham

Published January 1, 2021 at 7:00 AM EST

U.S. Department of Labor, State Minimum Wage Rate for Michigan [STTMINWGMI], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/STTMINWGMI, December 23, 2020.

The Michigan minimum wage is not going up today.

The hourly minimum wage was supposed to increase from $9.65 to $9.87 January 1st. But, state law does not allow the scheduled increases when the previous year’s unemployment rate is above 8.5%.

Because of a spike in unemployment in the spring and early summer, the average unemployment rate in Michigan for the year is higher than that.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Services is not scheduled to release state unemployment figures for December until later this month. But the Michigan Bureau of Employment Relations, Wage and Hour division warned the December numbers likely won’t be enough to change the year’s average below the 8.5% threshold and a minimum wage increase is unlikely.

Unless the legislature acts, the minimum wage won’t increase until 2022 and only if the unemployment rate in Michigan remains close to levels seen in the last quarter of 2020 which hovered between 6 and 7%.

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