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Client Alert
Puerto Rico’s New Minimum Wage
By: Angel Berberena, Esq.
September 21, 2021
On September 21, 2021, the Governor of Puerto Rico, Hon. Pedro R. Pierluisi, signed into law Project 338 of the House of Representatives (Law No. 47-2021). Law No. 47-2021 will increase Puerto Rico’s minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $8.50 per hour on January 1, 2022. This new minimum wage is applicable to all workers currently covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act of June 25, 1938, as amended. Minimum wage provisions in the statute are not extensive to government employees, agricultural employees, or exempt employees (administrators, executives, and professionals) as defined by Regulation 13 of the Department of Labor of Puerto Rico.
Law No. 47-2021 also creates the Commission to Evaluate the Minimum Wage and provides the following additional increases to minimum wage over the next few years: on July 1, 2023, an increase to $9.50 per hour; and on July 1, 2024, an increase to $10.50 per hour. These subsequent increases will become effective unless the Commission issues mandatory decrees changing them. The Commission is also tasked with creating mandatory decrees for agricultural and tipped workers and may establish provisions addressing administrators, executives, and professionals.
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