TRENTON -- On Dec. 21, the Minimum Wage Advisory Commission released its first annual report, recommending that the state minimum wage rate be increased to $8.25 per hour immediately and recommending automatic cost-of-living annual adjustments in each subsequent year.

According to the report, a minimum wage of $8.25 per hour would provide the equivalent of the poverty level for a three-person family with one wage earner working full time.

The New Jersey Minimum Wage Advisory Commission was created by New Jersey Public Law 2005, c. 70 (C.34:11-56a4.7), enacted on April 12, 2005, and is charged with annually evaluating the adequacy of the minimum wage relative to cost of living factors and making recommendations to the Governor and the Legislature regarding whether and how much to increase the minimum wage.

The Commission met throughout 2007 and deliberated on public testimony submitted in response to announcements published on the internet and in the New Jersey Register requesting public comments during a 90-day period during the middle of 2007.

The Commission report found that New Jersey’s current minimum wage rate of $7.15 per hour is not adequate to maintain the purchasing power that workers earning this wage level enjoyed in October 2006. Furthermore, under the factors specified in the statute that established the Commission, the current minimum wage is insufficient to support a full-time worker in New Jersey.

“New Jersey’s minimum-wage workers are struggling to make ends meet,” said Labor Commissioner David J. Socolow, who serves as Chair of the Minimum Wage Advisory Commission. “Without an immediate increase in the minimum wage – and annual cost-of-living increases every year – these workers fall even further behind. Minimum-wage workers in New Jersey need a raise and a real opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty through their hard work.”

The Minimum Wage Advisory Commission recommended the following actions to maintain the purchasing power of New Jersey’s minimum wage:

New Jersey’s minimum wage should be increased to $8.25 per hour at the end of 2007.
New Jersey’s minimum wage should be automatically adjusted in each subsequent year by a percentage set by the Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers (CPI-U) in the North East Metropolitan Region.
Currently, ten states automatically increase their minimum wage rates using an annual CPI index: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. As a result of their laws providing annual cost-of-living increases to the minimum wage, many of these states will soon have minimum wage rates that are higher than that of New Jersey.

The Minimum Wage Advisory Commission is a permanent, independent body in, but not of, the Department of Labor and Workforce Development. The commission consists of five members as follows: David J. Socolow, Commissioner of Labor and Workforce Development, ex officio, chair of the commission; Charles Hall, Jr., President, Local 108 RWDSU/UFCW; Philip Kirschner, President, New Jersey Business and Industry Association; Eric C. Richard, Legislative Director, NJ AFL-CIO and JoAnn Trezza, Vice President Human Resources, Arrow Group Industries.