NORTH CAROLINA: Double Progress

In the industry-hungry South, the federal $1-an-hour minimum-wage law protects workers in the big new plants shipping goods in interstate commerce, but Deep Dixie has massively resisted state minimum-wage laws to cover local industry and retail businesses fattened by the new payrolls. Last week progressive North Carolina (TIME, May 4) broke the Deep South line with a 75¢-an-hour minimum that assured prompt raises for 55,000 low-paid Tarheels.

Businessman Governor Luther Hodges made the wage floor a key part of his legislative program two years ago, got it to floor debate after ten years of death-by-committee. This year, backed by a determined band of freshman legislators, Hodges insisted on the minimum wage as necessary paving on the state's road into the future. Said he: "Employers can afford it, employees deserve it, and the state's economic progress demands it."