State legislators in Hawaii passed the first minimum wage hike since 2007 on Tuesday, increasing the $7.25/hour wage to $10.10/hour by January 2018, ThinkProgress reported.
Hawaii follows two other states -- Connecticut and Maryland -- in passing a higher minimum wage that President Barack Obama and Democratic members of U.S. Congress has expressed support for. On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate will vote on whether to pass a national wage increase to $10.10.
However, one aspect of Hawaii's law is unique as it applies to tipped workers, like restaurant servers and taxi drivers.
People who make less than $17.10 an hour including their tips will have to be paid $10.10 wage plus tips. Additionally, the employers of those who make more than that can deduct a 75 cent tip credit from their wage.
In Maryland, wages for tipped workers is still set at $3.63 an hour and in Connecticut it remains at 63.2 percent of the higher wage, at $6.38 once the new wage is enacted.
At the federal level, minimum wage for tipped workers is still at $2.13 an hour -- where it's been for the last two decades.
According to ThinkProgress, a national minimum wage rase would lift around 5 million people from poverty, minimize the gender pay gap by five percent, and cut spending on food stamps by $46 billion over the next decade.
A group of religious leaders from different faiths joined together to write a letter urging Congress to pass a wage hike.
"We respect the dignity of our neighbors who toil under the yoke of today's unjust minimum wage, and we call on our elected leaders to ease their burden by making the minimum wage a family wage," the letter read.
Rev. James Perkins, the vice president of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, referred to the wages debate as a "moral issue."
"People who are opposed to raising the minimum wage are more interested in their economic ideology than they are in providing struggling people with the dignity of work," he said.
Perkins also criticized the idea that church anti-poverty programs are enough and should therefore leave the government free of concerns for the poor populations.
"Taking care of the poor is more than just the concern of the church," he said. "It's the church's role to be the conscience of society and remind our political leaders and those in positions of influence ... that those two have a moral obligation to help and take care of the poor simply by paying them a living wage."
