Who benefits from a wage increase?

The Senate may have shot down an effort to boost the minimum wage last week, but the movement is still alive in the states. In North Carolina, a bill to increase the state minimum wage by one dollar, House Bill 2174, passed the state House, but the state Senate Commerce Committee has not taken it up yet.

The NC Justice Center has released a brief (pdf) on who would benefit most from the dollar hike in North Carolina -- and it turns out workers in the mountains and coast, as opposed to the urban areas in the center of the state, stand the most to gain:

Eastern and western North Carolina would benefit the most from a one-dollar increase in the minimum wage. About 5% of workers in eastern North Carolina and 4% of workers in the far western part of the state would see a bump up in wages, compared to about 3% of workers in most of the piedmont.

Politically, the areas that would benefit most are also the most conservative regions in the state.