Montana workers earning minimum wage will get a 15 cents-an-hour raise this week.

The state's minimum wage increases to $8.05 an hour on Jan. 1.

A voter-passed initiative called for Montana's minimum wage to increase by the same percentage as the Consumer Price Index each year. In this case, the CPI 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 in 2014.

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

In 2006, 73 percent of voters approved an initiative to adjust the state's minimum wage for inflation each year.

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