Minimum Wage in the USA: in which state is it highest and amounts

The dawn of a new year brings the same old questions. Will aliens finally be revealed to exist? Will flying cars be developed this year? Will the minimum wage increase in my state? Ahem.

Many people in the US are likely to be experiencing a wage rise this year if they are on the minimum wage. While plans for a federal minimum wage, if they could be called plans, dribbled away like sediment being washed down a drain, states continue to adjust theirs as inflation bites. Most of them anyway.

Raising the minimum wage has been a winner whether it is in Republican-leaning or Democrat-leaning states. From 1996 to 2020, there were 27 minimum wage increase measures on the ballot across the US. Of the 27 measures, 25 were approved and 2 were defeated, with approval averaging 60 percent according to Ballotpedia. Florida was the most recent voting in the November elections to increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 by 2026.

The states with the highest minimum wage

While the federal minimum wage has been stuck at its current level, since 2014 over two dozen states and Washington DC have raised their own base hourly wage.

The states with the lowest minimum wage

While there are only a handful of states with a minimum wage higher than $15 an hour, there are plenty that have their’s much lower, if it is set at all. At present, there are 20 states which have a minimum wage of $7.25. This has remained at the same level since the last federal minimum wage change in July 2009.

If the federal minimum wage was abolished then four states would have no minimum wage at all.