a raise lands july first

and it beats what the cost of living took from us this year.

Starting July first, Alaska's minimum wage goes from thirteen dollars an hour to fourteen. If you or your kids work a minimum wage job around Anchorage, that's a real bump in every paycheck.

It's about a seven and a half percent raise. The cost of living here only climbed around four percent, so for once the paycheck is growing faster than the prices at the store.

This isn't a one-time thing either. We voted for it back in 2024, and the same measure pushes the floor up again to fifteen dollars next July. After that, it keeps pace with rising prices automatically.

A couple things worth knowing. Tips don't count toward that minimum, so tipped workers still earn the full base on top. And school bus drivers have to be paid at least double the minimum, which is its own nice bump.

For comparison, the federal floor is still seven dollars and twenty-five cents, frozen since 2009. Twenty states sit right at that line, and we're a long way above it.

Down in Nome, a group of students isn't satisfied with the state number, and they're pushing a local measure to take their town's wage all the way to twenty-five dollars an hour.