DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Polk County supervisors have given final approval to raising the minimum wage to $10.75 an hour within the next 30 months.
The Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 for the proposal Tuesday in the third of three required readings and approvals. The current $7.25 rate will rise to $8.75 an hour in April, to $9.75 in January 2018 and finally to $10.75 in January 2019.
Polk County becomes the fourth in Iowa to raise the minimum wage, following actions by Johnson, Linn and Wapello counties. Polk County is home to Iowa’s largest city, Des Moines and Linn is home to the second-largest, Cedar Rapids. That leaves Scott County and Davenport as the most-populous county remaining that has not increased its minimum wage.
The Polk County measure includes freezing the tipped-worker minimum wage at $5 per hour, rather than keeping the rate at 60 percent of the overall minimum wage. And it includes a lower figure for workers 17 and under: 85 percent of the new minimum wage.
