13 STATES RAISE THEIR MINIMUM WAGES
I know this may be a little late, but there has been so much going on, I forgot to write about all the new minimum wages that recently went into effect. The 2014 federal minimum wage will remain unchanged at $7.25 per hour for non-tipped employees and $2.13 per hour for tipped employees. But, one state’s minimum wage increased on December 31, 2013 and eleven other states raised theirs on January 1, 2014. Additionally, one state’s minimum wage is set to increase on July 1, 2014.
New York: Effective December 31, 2013 the state increased their minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.00 per hour for all non-exempt employees. The minimum wage is also set to increase to $8.75 per hour on December 31, 2014, and then to $9.00 (or the federal minimum wage, if higher) on December 31, 2015.
Arizona: Effective January 1, 2014 the state increased their minimum wage from $7.80 to $7.90 per hour for non-exempt employees. The minimum wage for tipped employees’ went from $4.80 to $4.90 per hour, plus tips.
Colorado: Effective January 1, 2014 the state increased their minimum wage from $7.78 to $8.00 per hour for non-tipped employees, and went from $4.76 to $4.98 per hour for tipped employees.
Connecticut: Effective January 1, 2014 the state increased their minimum wage from $8.25 to $8.70 per hour for all non-exempt employees. The minimum wage is also set to increase to $9.00 per hour on January 1, 2015.
Florida: Effective January 1, 2014 the state increased their minimum wage from $7.79 to $7.93 per hour. The minimum wage for tipped employees increased from $4.77 per hour to $4.91 per hour, plus tips.
Missouri: Effective January 1, 2014 the state increased their minimum wage from $7.35 to $7.50 per hour for non-tipped employees.
Montana: Effective January 1, 2014 the state increased their minimum wage from $7.80 to $7.90 per hour for non-exempt employees.
Ohio: Effective January 1, 2014 the state increased their minimum wage from $7.85 to $7.95 per hour for non-tipped employees. Also, the minimum wage increased from at least $3.93 to at least $3.98 per hour, plus tips, for tipped employees. Note: the 2014 minimum wage provisions only apply to businesses with annual gross receipts of more than $292,000 per year, up from $288,000 in 2013.
Oregon: Effective January 1, 2014 the state increased their minimum wage from $8.95 to $9.10 per hour for non-exempt employees.
Rhode Island: Effective January 1, 2014 the state increased their minimum wage from $7.75 to $8.00 per hour for all non-exempt employees. Rhode Island permits employers to apply a tip credit toward satisfying its minimum wage obligations for tipped employees, and sets a minimum cash wage tipped employees must be paid. However, that statute was not amended, so the minimum cash wage a tipped employee must be paid remains $2.89 per hour, but the tip credit an employer may apply did increase from $4.86 to $5.11 per hour.
Vermont: Effective January 1, 2014 the state increased their minimum wage from $8.60 to $8.73 per hour. They also increased the minimum cash wage for tipped employees from $4.17 to $4.23 per hour.
Washington: Effective January 1, 2014 the state increased their minimum wage from $9.19 to $9.32 per hour for all non-exempt employees (currently, this is the highest rate paid in the nation – but not for long).
California: Effective on July 1, 2014 the state will increase their minimum wage from $8.00 to $9.00 per hour for all non-exempt employees. The minimum wage is also set to increase on January 1, 2016 to $10 per hour, which, at that time, will be the highest paid in the entire country, by far!
SOME INTERESTING CLASS ACTION LAWSUITS
If you recall, last month I wrote about hiring owner operators and the internet. I’m not going to get into all of that again, but last month the President’s 2015 budget was released. On page 108 of the budget, the President states that his Administration seeks to “detect and deter” the misclassification of employees as independent contractors. Well, obviously, this issue is not going away! Then, while researching two recent class action lawsuits against two California port trucking companies (Pacific 9 and Coast Bridge) over claims they wrongly classified drivers, I stumbled upon two very disturbing non-trucking-related court cases.
Ever wonder why all of a sudden your computer or printer “hiccups” and goes haywire for no apparent reason? Then, after messing around with it for a while, it starts working again, and you don’t even know exactly what you did. This will really make you wonder the next time you have a problem like this.
In March 2005, a class action complaint was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court against Epson America, Inc. The complaint alleged that Epson installed a chip in its printers that blocked the ink cartridge from functioning even though there was still a substantial amount of ink still remaining. A settlement was reached in 2006 which amounted to over $300 million and is considered one of the largest consumer settlements ever. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? They sure kept this a secret! How many ink cartridges did you buy unnecessarily? Will you ever buy an Epson printer again?
Another interesting case I found involves Yahoo. All of the search engines (i.e., Yahoo, Google, Bing, etc.) want you to advertise on their websites. They call it “pay for clicks” advertising, whereas the advertiser’s rate is determined by the number of “clicks” on the ad. If someone clicks on your ad, then you pay Yahoo (or whoever) a predetermined amount. This has always made me wonder – why would anyone want to pay for someone just to “look” at their website but not have to buy anything? This makes no sense at all to me.
Well, it seems that the businesses and individuals that advertised on the Yahoo site brought a lawsuit against them for breach of contract and unfair business practices. The complaint alleged that Yahoo breached its agreement with advertisers by charging them for fraudulent or invalid clicks. Wow, what a surprise! An eight-figure confidential settlement was paid to all persons that purchased ads on Yahoo between January 1, 1998 and July 31, 2006. So, do you still believe everything they tell you? Until next month, “Drive Safe – Drive Smart!” (and don’t fall for any scams).