President Bush was expected to sign the bill quickly, and workers who now make $5.15 an hour will see their paychecks go up by 70 cents per hour before the end of the summer. Another 70 cents will be added next year, and by summer 2009, all minimum-wage jobs will pay no less than $7.25 an hour.

The minimum-wage increase, though, may have little effect in Utah, where the tight labor market already has pushed wages for many entry-level workers well past today's minimum wage of $5.15, said Utah Department of Workforce Services economist Mark Knold. He said he believes many of the people in Utah still earning minimum wage also earn tips, boosting their total compensation.

"At the end of the day, they are earning more than minimum wage," he said.

He said Utah's unofficial minimum wage - the minimum that employers in the state must pay to get workers - is probably close to what the new government minimum-wage mandate will be in 2009.

This would be the first change since the minimum wage went from $4.75 to $5.15 on Sept. 1, 1997, under former President Clinton and a Republican-controlled Con- gress.

The liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute, a research group in Washington, estimates that 5.6 million workers - or 4 percent of the work force - earn less than $7.25.

''This is a great day for America's middle class,'' said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. ''America's workers have been waiting for a raise for a long time.''

Currently, a person working 40 hours per week at the current minimum wage of $5.15 makes about $10,700 a year. An increase to $7.25 would boost that to just over $15,000 a year.

The full increase, according to Miller, is enough to pay for 15 months of groceries for a family of three.

More than two dozen states and the District of Columbia already have minimum wages higher than the federal level. Minimum wage workers are typically young, single and female and are often black or Latino.