Nebraska Minimum Wage Changes: The Neighbors (Cont.)

April 15th, 2007 Posted by Mark

We continue our look at Nebraska’s neighbors to get a better sense of why the state legislators in the Nebraska Senate have considered a $6.26 ceiling, arrived at over the course of the three years, as their new proposed Nebraska minimum wage. We move on to Illinois, which just passed a minimum wage that covers all employers with four or more employers.

The Illinois minimum wage is currently set at $6.50 per hour, but the newest minimum wage increase will occur in a few months on July 1, when the Illinois minimum wage will then go up to $7.50 per hour. Then on July 1, 2010, the Illinois minimum wage will increase again to the rate of $8.25 per hour. We know the situation in Missouri, another Nebraska neighbor, pretty well, where the voters last fall approved of a minimum wage increase to $6.50 per hour, which went into effect this past January 1.

South Dakota has a proposed minimum wage law in its legislature too. We shall talk about it later in more detail when we get around to reviewing the situation in that state, but in brief, the new law would increase the state minimum wage if and when the federal minimum wage goes into effect. The South Dakota minimum wage increases would also follow the same pattern of increases and timing of the federal minimum wage, ending up at $7.25 per hour after three changes over the next two or so years.

So as you can see, the proposed Nebraska minimum wage would put that state sort of in the middle of the pack of its neighbors when it comes to the minimum wage, whereas the moment, the state is kind of at the lower end of the spectrum when it comes to its state minimum wage.

Last 10 posts by Mark

« Nebraska Minimum Wage Changes: The Neighbors
Nebraska Minimum Wage Changes: The Bottom Line »
Posted in Employment Laws, Minimum Wage, Nebraska, Wage and Hour

  1. Posted by: Joyce Dettman

    Is it leagal for an employer to take monies from your pay to replace monies that came up missing, when you had no control over it and was not even at work that day? What happened was the store I work at was selling tickets for a fair and the money came up missing, I didnt work that day and when I was asked about it I had no clue what the mony bag it was in even looked like because I never sold any of the tickets, nor did I ever see the bag. Please email me back Thank you.

  2. Posted by: Amelia

    Hi Joyce! No, this is probably not legal. You should file a wage complaint with the Nebraska department of Labor, also called Nebraska Workforce Development. They will investigate. In some cases a Nebraska employer can make a deduction to an employee’s wages when the employee has given written permission in advance. For example, if a cash drawer for which you were solely responsible was short, the employer might be able to deduct that amount from your wages. However, in this case it appears that the employer is using a deduction as a punative measure, to punish one or a group of employees. And it appears that several people are being punished, not just the one responsible. That’s probably unlawful. If you file a claim, they will have to pay the amount of wages they have withheld. HTH, and thanks for reading the blogs!~ Amelia

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