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Show Federal Minimum Wage Rate Increases Nearly 5.3 million American Workers will be eligible for a pay raise on Jan. l, 1979, when the Federal minimum wage rises to $2.90 per hour, the U.S. Department of Labor announced today. Approximately 30,210 workers are covered by raise in Utah and 159,000 in the six-state region which includes Colo., Mont., No. and So. Dak., Utah and Wyo. On Nov. 1, 1977, President Carter signed amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act establishing uniform minimum wage rates for all covered workers in the 50 states--$2.65 an hour effective ef-fective this past Jan.l increasing in-creasing annually to $2.90, $3.10 and $3.35 an hour by Jan. 1, 1981. Farm workers will received the same wage rates. "The minimum wage law protects workers at the low end of the wage scale by enabling them to share in productivity gains and maintain at least a minimum standard of living," Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall said. The Wage and Hour motels and restaurants. Beginning Jan. 1, 1979, these employees will be clue overtime premium pay after 40 hours in the work week. During fiscal 1978, the Labor Department found that more than 400,000workers protected by federal wage and hour laws were illigally underpaid by , almost $129 million. Violations of the minimum wage and overtime provisions of the FLSA accounted for the bulk of underpayments. Minimum wage underpayments un-derpayments totalled over $40 million owed to 371,000 persons last year. Secretary Marshall said the department has instituted in-stituted an intensified information in-formation effort to publicize the enactment of the 1977 amendments and to acquaint both employers and employees with new provisions. "To guarantee that all covered workers receive the benefits they are due, the Department of Labor will vigorously continue its enforcement efforts," Marshall said. Division, a part of the department's Employment Standards Administration is responsible for administering ad-ministering and enforcing the FLSA (which sets minimum wage, overtime pay, child labor and equal pay standards.) Under the 1977 FLSA amendments, the percentage per-centage of tip credit which can be applied toward the minimum wage for tipped employees will be reduced to 45 percent effective Jan. 1,1979 and 40 percent effective Jan. 1, 1980. As a result of these amendments another change is the repeal of the partial overtime exemption for employees of hotels, |