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New Hampshire Federal Minimum Wage Alert

June 10th, 2007 Posted by Mark

The New Hampshire new minimum wage law just passed about a month ago. That was merely weeks before the federal minimum wage law was passed by Congress and then signed by President Bush. So it is no wonder that the two bills are tied together. The one and the two are not exactly tied at the hip—as we saw in other states, where the state minimum wage increases exactly when the federal minimum wage will—but the two minimum wages will end up at the same place around the same time.

The new New Hampshire minimum wage will become $6.50 per hour this coming Sept. 1, 2006, up from its current level of $5.15 per hour. Then a year later, in September of 2008, the New Hampshire minimum wage will go up from $6.50 per hour to $7.25 per hour.

In contrast, the federal minimum wage will go from $5.15 per hour to $5.85 per hour in about six weeks or so. Then a year after that in 2008, the federal minimum wage will increase again from $5.85 per hour to $6.50 per hour. One year after that, in 2009, again the federal minimum wage will go up from $6.50 per hour to $7.25 per hour, the same level as the New Hampshire minimum wage at the time.

The difference obviously lies in exactly how the New Hampshire minimum wage will get to the same finish line, so to speak, as the federal minimum wage. The federal minimum wage will take three increases to get there, and the New Hampshire minimum wage will take two increases. And that could make a little but important difference for some employers in the state. That is because there will be a couple months in the New England state where the federal minimum wage—at $5.85 per hour at the time—will be higher than the New Hampshire minimum wage—at $5.15 per hour still. For those two months, employers in the state who are liable to follow the federal wage and hour regulations in the Fair Labor Standards Act will be required to pay that higher rate, while the other smaller more local employees in the state will pay the lower New Hampshire rate for that time.

Then in Sept., as I mentioned, the New Hampshire minimum wage will increase to $6.50 per hour, and become higher than the federal minimum wage for the rest of 2007 and for the first half of 2008 for the most part. During that time, most all employers in the state of New Hampshire—including those who were previously paying the federal minimum wage—will now pay the higher New Hampshire minimum wage. In the middle of 2008, when the federal minimum wage increases to $6.50 per hour, then it won’t matter so much, as all employers in the state will already be paying that.

Interesting things will again occur in Sept., this time in 2008, when the New Hampshire minimum wage will increase to $7.25 per hour, ahead of the schedule of the federal minimum wage. Again, for the end of 2008, and for the first half of the next year, 2009, the employers of the state—nearly all of them—will be paying the higher state minimum wage than the lower federal minimum wage. It won’t be until the middle of 2009 that the federal minimum wage will reach that same level again as the New Hampshire minimum wage.

What will all New Hampshire employers need to do no matter what though? Of course—get themselves new New Hampshire minimum wage posters and federal minimum wage posters.