State minimum wage going up to $8.05 an hour

HELENA — Montana’s minimum wage is going up 15 cents an hour to $8.05 beginning in January.

A voter-passed initiative called for Montana’s minimum wage to increase by the same percentage as the Consumer Price Index over a year. In this case, it increased by 1.7 percent between August 2013 and August 2014. The wage increase is rounded to the nearest 5 cents.

The Department of Labor and Industry estimates 12,850 Montana workers, or 2.9 percent of the workforce, received hourly wages less than $8.05 an hour last year.

With the increase, workers with a 40-hour-per-week job earning minimum wage would make $6 more per week.