LYNN – Low-wage workers will get a boost in their paychecks starting today when the minimum wage increases from $7.50 to $8 an hour, a difference of $1,040 over the course of one year for a full-time worker.The increase will bring the state minimum wage to the highest in the Northeast and one of the highest in the country.The previous increase came last Jan. 1 when the minimum wage increased from $6.75 to $7.50 an hour.Lynn resident Agustina Matos, 39, a minimum wage worker, Neighbor-to-Neighbor member and single mother, said the increase would help her to get by.Currently living in a studio apartment with her 10-year-old daughter Michelle, Matos said the extra money would allow her to rent a larger apartment so that they could have their own bedrooms.”The increase in 2007 helped keep me afloat and made it so that I could buy a car and not have to spend hours a day on the bus and spend more time with my family,” she said.Matos, a native of the Dominican Republic, said she moved to Lynn roughly 4 years ago with Michelle from Puerto Rico for a better quality of life.However, after landing a minimum wage paying job at Salem State College in the Food Services Department, she found herself facing an hour-long commute to and from work everyday via bus, that took valuable time away from her being with her daughter.”I had to wake up so much earlier at 5 a.m. to take the bus and it cost me $15 a week,” she said. “I had to put Michelle in an after school program until 5 p.m. because I wasn’t there to take care of her.”Frustrated by her situation, Matos said she began working at Neighbor to Neighbor to campaign for a higher minimum wage.Having attended numerous rallies at the State House, Matos said she got more and more minimum wage workers involved in the fight and eventually came out victorious.The latest increase will benefit roughly 46 percent of full time workers according to the Economic Policy Institute, with 60 percent being women, and 76 percent of employees over the age of 20.Lew Finfer of Neighbor to Neighbor said the increase would benefit roughly 100,000 people.”In terms of the cost of living, the increase will help hundreds of thousands, but the real minimum wage according to the Living Wage Calculator should be around $12 an hour,” he said. “However, we will have the third highest minimum wage in the country now.”Rev. Jane Gould of St. Stephen’s Church in Lynn said the church was involved in the campaign to raise the minimum wage.”We have our share of immigrant and U.S. born citizens trying to make it by on a minimum wage at the church,” she said. “They just can’t live on that kind of money. It may be OK for a teenager, but not for someone that has to provide for a family.”Gould said low wages typically put a strain on those who need to work multiple jobs to simply make ends meet.”It really puts a whole lot of things at risk such as health and parental guidance,” she said. “So the extra money will provide a little respite, but we dream of the day when workers get paid a living wage.”A coalition of community groups and unions led the organizing campaign to increase the minimum wage, including Neighbor to Neighbor, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, the Coalition for Social Justice, the Massachusetts Communities Action Network, Essex County Community Organization, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the Service Employees International Union, the National Association of Social Workers, and several other organizations.