Virginia lawmakers are looking to raise the minimum wage to $13.50 starting in 2025 and $15.00 in 2026.

Employers are expected to continue to pay above minimum wage because of labor shortages

In a move to make working for the city of Roanoke more attractive, the Roanoke City Council unanimously voted to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour on Monday.

“These are investments in people that are important to our future,” said Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon. With the latest pay increase, about 730,000 of Walmart’s employees will make at least $15 an hour. Walmart said its starting wage will stay at $11 an hour. President Joe Biden included a $15 federal minimum wage in his $1.9 trillion stimulus proposal last month. The legislation calls for the minimum wage to increase to $15 an hour by 2025.

WASHINGTON – Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, both Democrats from Virginia, joined other Democrats in introducing a bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 by 2025. It’s called the Raise the Wage Act of 2021. Combined, one in every three working people in Virginia will benefit from raising the wage. The Raise the Wage Act of 2021 would increase the federal minimum wage over a four-year period from $7.25 to $15. It would also index future increases in the federal minimum wage to median wage growth in addition to phasing out the subminimum wage for tipped workers, youth workers, and workers with disabilities.

Next month, all full-time Hobby Lobby employees who earn an hourly wage will make at least $17 an hour. The company most recently raised its minimum hourly wage in 2014 to $15 for full-time hourly employees. The federally established minimum wage is currently $7.25. Virginia’s minimum wage will become $9.50, starting May 1, 2021, and by Jan. 1, 2026, will be $15 an hour. Hobby Lobby has locations in Christiansburg, Lynchburg and Galax.

Northam’s amendment to delay the increase to Virginia’s minimum wage has passed in the Senate. The state senate voted 20-20 and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax provided the tie breaking vote in favor of delaying the minimum wage increase. During the legislative session, the General Assembly sent a bill to Northam that would increase Virginia’s minimum wage to $9.50 an hour beginning January 1, 2021. On April 12, the governor announced he had not signed the bill, rather he wanted it amended to delay that increase until May 1.

Ralph Northam to raise the minimum wage. Activists said it is now more clear than ever that we need to increase the minimum wage, as home healthcare workers, grocery store clerks and others have been deemed essential to the functioning of our society. “A lot of people are working without ability to go and buy their own food without the assistance of food stamps,” said Lisa Harris, who works in a grocery store. “Thousands of my fellow Virginia grocery workers are currently on the front lines of the coronavirus crisis putting ourselves in harm’s way to ensure that people can buy food and other essentials and getting paid poverty wages,” said Kristy Vance, who also works in a grocery store. Northam has until April 11 to sign a bill raising the minimum wage into law.

On what was scheduled to be the last day of Virginia’s legislative session, lawmakers struck a deal late Saturday night to raise the state’s minimum wage to $12 over the next three years. According to WWBT, The bill would increase the wage to $9.50 an hour on Jan. 1, $11 in 2022 and $12 in 2023. It also calls for a study of a regional minimum wage – an approach for which lawmakers in the Senate had been advocating. After that study is complete, lawmakers would vote in 2024 whether to continue increasing the wage to $13.50 in 2025 and $15 in 2026.

ROANOKE COUNTY, Va. – A local business owner is reacting to a bill to raise the minimum wage in Virginia. Brenda Poole has owned her salon, Just 4 Looks Hair Studio, in Roanoke County for more than 15 years. “I think a higher minimum wage is good, but I don’t know what that number should be. The Virginia Senate also passed a similar bill to raise the minimum wage, but the amount would vary depending on each region’s median income. The chambers will have to agree by the end of the session in March before a new minimum wage law would head to the governor’s desk for approval.

RICHMOND, Va. – An increase to the minimum wage in Virginia is looking more and more likely. The Virginia House of Delegates passed a bill Tuesday that would raise minimum wage nearly $2 this year to $10 per hour. Republicans representing our area echo small business owners’ concerns that a change in minimum wage could hurt them. Also on Tuesday, the Senate passed a version of this bill in which the minimum wage growth rate would vary by region, depending on median income. Changes to this bill have minimum wage increasing more quickly than when lawmakers first proposed it.

ROANOKE, Va. – Two separate bills proposed in the Virginia General Assembly would raise the minimum wage for workers to $15 per hour over the next three to five years starting July 1. That’s more than double the current hourly wage, $7.25, which is the federal minimum. However, the implications on businesses in southwest or central parts of the Commonwealth could be significant. The bills -- House Bill 395 and Senate Bill 7 -- would not apply to small or family-owned businesses with less than four employees, teenagers, and several other exceptions. “If employers are paying minimum wage, that’s going to be a very hard pill to swallow," Kassens said.