AHN says the increase will start at the end of March, affecting about 1,700 employees who are already at or near the current minimum hourly wage of $16 an hour.
Subsidiary Highmark Inc., which includes its Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance plans, took the biggest hit with 159 people furloughed in Western Pennsylvania and Erie.
A strike by Cleveland Clinic Akron General nurses has been averted after the Professional Staff Nurses Association reached a tentative contract agreement Monday with the hospital.