Twenty-one states including New York, Vermont, Connecticut, and Massachusetts raise the minimum wage in the New Year.
The minimum wage will rise to $9 per hour in Massachusetts, the first in an annual series of increases that will take it to $11 per hour in 2017. Kitty Callaghan of Living Wage Western Massachusetts said this is the first increase in the minimum wage in five years.
"There are people who probably don't have money right now to pay for any heat. Often people with wages that law can't pay their rent, so they are facing eviction."
Connecticut and Vermont’s minimum wage both go to $9.15 per hour. New York’s new minimum wage is $8.75.
