The minimum wage in Arkansas will increase to $10.00 an hour on Wednesday, Jan. 1, 2020. The rate had been $9.25 an hour.
To help workers understand this change, the Civil Litigation and Advocacy Clinic of the University of Arkansas has produced fact sheets in three languages, English, Spanish and Marshallese (PDFs).
The service is among the legal clinics offered by the School of Law, a project founded by then-professor Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1975.
While any increase in the minimum hourly wage is a boon for Arkansawyers, $10 is well shy of the $14.42 an hour sought for U of A employees in the Living Wage Campaign of Arkansas 965, the labor union on campus.
An initiated act approved by Arkansas voters in the November 2018 general election raised the minimum hourly wage from $8.50 to $9.25. In 2021, the bottom hourly pay will be $11.00.
Alas, the road to the official increase is bumpy, according to the Dec. 22, 2019, article “Arkansas Wage Law Pares Caregivers’ Pay — Medicaid’s 15¢ Rate Increase Sets Up Home-care Hours Cut” in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Some 2,800 disabled people in the state can retain home-based health aides, whose pay has been $10.40 an hour, which won’t cover the wage plus the caregiver’s taxes. To cover the loss, officials decided to cut the number of hours they can work. (Alternate link for the article)
The Civil Litigation and Advocacy Clinic — phone 479-575-3056 — provides free legal representation to low-wage workers in unpaid wage matters. It has recovered roughly $200,000 for its clients — including undocumented clients.
A related program, the Human Trafficking Clinic, advocates to confront and prevent human trafficking, including labor trafficking. Foreign nationals can be screened for eligibility for immigration relief.
UA-Fayetteville Education Association 
