Ohio’s minimum wage for most employees will increase

REGION

Minimum-wage increase

COLUMBUS — Ohio’s minimum wage for most employees will increase Tuesday, to $7 an hour for nontipped employees and to $3.50 per hour for tipped employees, plus tips.

Ohio’s current minimum wage is $6.85 per hour for nontipped employees and $3.43 per hour for tipped employees, plus tips, according to the Ohio Department of Commerce’s Division of Labor and Worker Safety.

The increased minimum wage will apply to employers that annually gross more than $255,000. Currently, the wage applies to employers that gross more than $250,000.

A constitutional amendment passed in November 2006 states that Ohio’s minimum wage shall increase Jan. 1 of each year by the rate of inflation.

NATION

HSN reaches settlement
with the government

WASHINGTON — The Home Shopping Network has agreed to pay the government an $875,000 civil settlement after the government accused the company of failing to promptly warn consumers about dangerous pressure cookers that were blamed for burning consumers at least 37 times.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced Thursday that the payment was part of a settlement reached with HSN LP and its partner companies over defects in Welbilt electronic pressure cookers sold between September 2001 and November 2002. HSN LP is the network’s corporate name.

The Welbilt pressure cooker was manufactured in Korea by DRECO Ltd., formerly known as DaeRyuk Electronics Ltd.

Jobless applications up

WASHINGTON — More people signed up for unemployment benefits last week, a fresh sign that the job market is softening as the economy loses speed.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications filed for unemployment insurance rose by a seasonally adjusted 1,000 to 349,000. Economists were expecting new filings for jobless benefits to dip to around 340,000 for last week.

The economy, which posted its best growth in four years during the summer, probably slowed to a pace of around 1.5 percent or less in the final three months of this year, according to economists’ projections. The sour housing market and harder-to-get credit are expected to weigh on consumers and businesses alike, contributing to the expected slowdown in overall economic growth.

Wire reports