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Workers celebrate outside the Ronald Reagan State Building in downtown Los Angeles on April 4, 2016, after California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill that will raise the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022.
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images
Starting in 2019, 20 states and 21 cities throughout the U.S. are hiking their minimum wages. But if the goal is reducing poverty, the minimum wage is a blunt instrument. Low-wage workers aren’t always poor, some are teens earning extra spending cash for example, but increasing the minimum wage can have outsized effects in states where the cost of living is lower.
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