It’s very rare these days to hear any good news about wages of low-income Americans. But Elise Gould, of the Economic Policy Institute, delivered exactly that in a report at the end of August.

Between the first half of 2013 and the first half of 2014, Gould found, the real wages of the bottom 10 percent of Americans grew 0.3 percent. That’s not much-in fact, it’s just a 2 cent increase in hourly pay-but every other decile saw their real wages fall during that period. That may be surprising. After all, the poorest workers generally see their wages stagnate, not rise. But there’s a good reason for why that trend reversed itself and it has to do with the minimum wage. Not the national minimum wage. Due to Republican obstruction, it remains stuck at $7.25. In the meantime, states have raised their own minimum wages-and that has made a difference for the poorest workers.

In 2014, 13 states raised their minimum wages, five through legislation and eight through inflation indexing. Gould compared wage growth for the bottom 10 percent of Americans in those 13 […]