California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced the state's minimum wage will rise to $17.40 per hour on 1 January, up from the current $16.90 and the highest of any US state. Newsom used the announcement to criticise the Trump administration and congressional Republicans for leaving the federal minimum wage at $7.25 — a rate unchanged since the presidency of George W. Bush. Despite the increase, economists at MIT estimate that each working adult in a typical California family of four must earn roughly $36.38 an hour to cover basic living costs in the state.