AUGUSTA, Maine — The minimum wage for the state of Maine, as well as the "tip wage" for service employees, will be increasing at the start of the new year.
According to a news release from the Maine Department of Labor, the state minimum wage will increase to $14.15 per hour, from $13.80, and the service labor wage also called "tip wage" will increase to $7.08.
The increase is tied into a law amended in 2016 that requires "annual adjustments to the minimum wage based on the cost-of-living index for the Northeast Region," and it cites a 2.4 percent increase in the CPI-W between August 2022 and August 2023.
For tipped workers, employers must show that workers receive at least the new Jan. 1, 2024, minimum wage of $14.15 per hour when the "direct wage and tips are combined at the end of the week," the release states.
When the law was amended in 2016, the state minimum wage sat at $7.50 per hour, with an increase starting Jan. 1, 2017, to $9 per hour, and additional increases thereafter to correspond with any increases in the cost of living, according to the Maine Legislature Labor and Industry statues.
Tipped employees were also slated to increase as follows: "Any employer may consider tips as part of the wages of a service employee, but such a tip credit may not exceed 50 percent of the minimum hourly wage established," it reads in part.