In some ways, it seems utterly tone-deaf.

It's true, come January 1st, Maine's minimum wage will increase from $12.15 per hour to $12.75 per hour. But let's face it, due to all the insane pandemic issues, most Maine businesses have been forced to start paying a lot more money than that to attract workers. Even fast food places are seeing starting average pay right now of $14.

So this time around, it's kind of hard to get excited about it. Although, to be fair, a $.60 an hour bump would feel pretty significant, if you were only making $12.15. Heck, even if you were making $18 an hour, that would still be a pretty sizable raise. It's just everything feels like we're in The Upside Down because of the pandemic.

If you're on salary, you may see a bump as well.

A lot of folks don't fully understand it, but Maine also has a minimum salary threshold as well. Meaning sure, you don't get paid overtime, but there is a state requirement about how much you're supposed to make for that tradeoff. Right now, the minimum salary rate is $36,000 annually. That will now go up to slightly over $38,000, says WABI.

Naturally, because of the world we're living in right now, this news will actually anger some groups of people. One group will likely feel this is nowhere near enough, others will feel like the state is imposing unfair pay hikes on businesses, and others will just complain because that's what they do all day anyway.

You can please some of the people some of the time.....

But, the fact of the matter is, everyone deserves a livable wage of some kind or other. Folks will always disagree on what that number should look like, but hey... at least it's not going down. Regardless, in addition to all the folks who may not like it for whatever reason, there will be plenty of people stoked for that extra cash come January 1.

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