The federally mandated minimum wage in the United States is 7.25 U.S. dollars per hour, although the minimum wage varies from state to state. As of January 1, 2025, the District of Columbia had the highest minimum wage in the U.S., at 17.5 U.S. dollars per hour. This was followed by Washington, which had 16.66 U.S. dollars per hour as the state minimum wage. Minimum wage workers Minimum wage jobs are traditionally seen as “starter jobs” in the U.S., or first jobs for teenagers and young adults, and the number of people working minimum wage jobs has decreased from almost four million in 1979 to about 247,000 in 2020. However, the number of workers earning less than minimum wage in 2020 was significantly higher, at about 865,000. Minimum wage jobs Minimum wage jobs are primarily found in food preparation and serving occupations, as well as sales jobs (primarily in retail). Because the minimum wage has not kept up with inflation, nor has it been increased since 2009, it is becoming harder and harder live off of a minimum wage wage job, and for those workers to afford essential things like rent.

The average national minimum wage represents a weighted average of local, state and federal statutory minimum hourly wages, as of January 1 of the calendar year. It is presented in chained 2017 dollars and projected based on current legislation.

Graph and download economic data for Federal Minimum Hourly Wage for Nonfarm Workers for the United States (FEDMINNFRWG) from Oct 1938 to Jun 2025 about per hour, minimum wage, nonfarm, workers, hours, federal, wages, and USA.

A 2021 analysis of state minimum wages and union density found that states with a high union density had a higher than average minimum wage at the state level. States with low union density had the lowest average minimum wages. Union density by state for 2022 can be found here.

This statistic shows the real hourly minimum wage in the United States from 2001 to 2022 (in PPP U.S. dollars). In the United States in 2022, the real minimum wage was *** U.S. dollars per hour.

Minimum Wages in the United States remained unchanged at 7.25 USD/Hour in 2025 from 7.25 USD/Hour in 2024. This dataset provides - United States Minimum Wages- actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

Wages in the United States increased to 31.24 USD/Hour in June from 31.15 USD/Hour in May of 2025. This dataset provides - United States Average Hourly Wages - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics, economic calendar and news.

In 1979, about 3.99 million workers were paid hourly rates at the official minimum wage. In 2023, about 81,000 workers were paid hourly rates at the prevailing minimum wage. The prevailing Federal minimum wage was 7.25 U.S. dollars per hour in 2023.

Graph and download economic data for Federal Minimum Wage Rate under the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act (STTMINWGFG) from 1968 to 2025 about minimum wage, federal, wages, labor, rate, and USA.

When adjusted for inflation, the 2024 federal minimum wage in the United States is over 40 percent lower than the minimum wage in 1970. Although the real dollar minimum wage in 1970 was only 1.60 U.S. dollars, when expressed in nominal 2024 dollars this increases to 13.05 U.S. dollars. This is a significant difference from the federal minimum wage in 2024 of 7.25 U.S. dollars.

In 2023, the median hourly earnings of wage and salary workers in the United States was 19.24 U.S. dollars. This is an increase from 1979, when median hourly earnings were at 4.44 U.S. dollars. Hourly Workers The United States national minimum wage is 7.25 U.S. dollars per hour, which has been the minimum wage since 2009. However, each state has the agency to set their state minimum wage. Furthermore, some cities are able to create their minimum wage. Many argue that the minimum wage is too low and should be raised, because it is not considered a living wage. There has been a movement to raise the minimum wage to 15 U.S. dollars per hour, called “Fight for 15” which began in the early 2010s. While there has been no movement at the federal level, some states have moved to increase their minimum wages, with at least three states and the District of Columbia setting minimum wage rates at or above 15 dollars per hour. More recently, some proponents of increasing the minimum wage say that 15 dollars is too low, and lawmakers should strive toward a higher goal, especially given that a 2021 analysis found that the minimum wage in the U.S. should be 22.88 U.S. dollars if it grew at the same rate as economic productivity. Salary Workers On the other hand, salary workers in the United States do not get paid on an hourly basis. The median weekly earnings of salary workers have significantly increased since 1979. Asian salary workers had the highest hourly earnings in the U.S. in 2021. Among female salary workers, those ages 45 to 54 years old had the highest median hourly earnings in 2021, likewise for male salary workers.

Graph and download economic data for State Minimum Wage Rate for California (STTMINWGCA) from 1968 to 2025 about minimum wage, wages, CA, rate, and USA.

The graph presents the median monthly salary in the United States from 2000 to 2024. The x-axis represents the years, labeled from '00 to '24*, while the y-axis shows the salary amounts in U.S. dollars per month. Throughout this twenty-four-year period, the median monthly salary consistently increased from $2,500 in 2000 to $5,036 in 2024. The data highlights a steady upward trend, with annual salaries rising each year without any declines. Notably, the salary grew by approximately $200 each year from 2000 to 2019, surged to $4,269 in 2020, and continued to climb each subsequent year, reaching $5,000 by 2024. This consistent growth reflects economic advancements and potential increases in workforce compensation over the decade. The information is depicted in a line graph format, effectively illustrating the continuous rise in median monthly salaries across the specified years.

Key information about United States Monthly Earnings

• United States Monthly Earnings stood at 4,901 USD in Feb 2025, compared with the previous figure of 4,887 USD in Jan 2025
• US Monthly Earnings data is updated monthly, available from Mar 2006 to Feb 2025, with an average number of 3,469 USD
• The data reached the an all-time high of 4,901 USD in Feb 2025 and a record low of 2,743 USD in Mar 2006

• In the latest reports, US Population reached 341 million people in Dec 2024
• Unemployment Rate of US increased to 4 % in Feb 2025
• The country's Labour Force Participation Rate remained the same rate at 62 % in Feb 2025

Wages in the United States increased 4.72 percent in May of 2025 over the same month in the previous year. This dataset provides the latest reported value for - United States Wages and Salaries Growth - plus previous releases, historical high and low, short-term forecast and long-term prediction, economic calendar, survey consensus and news.

Graph and download economic data for Federal Minimum Hourly Wage for Farm Workers for the United States (FEDMINFRMWG) from Jan 1967 to Jun 2025 about per hour, minimum wage, agriculture, workers, hours, federal, wages, and USA.

In October 2024, the average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls in the United States stood at 35.46 U.S. dollars. The data have been seasonally adjusted. Employed persons are employees on nonfarm payrolls and consist of: persons who did any work for pay or profit during the survey reference week; persons who did at least 15 hours of unpaid work in a family-operated enterprise; and persons who were temporarily absent from their regular jobs because of illness, vacation, bad weather, industrial dispute, or various personal reasons.

Analysis of ‘US Minimum Wage by State from 1968 to 2020’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://www.kaggle.com/lislejoem/us-minimum-wage-by-state-from-1968-to-2017 on 12 November 2021.

--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---

US Minimum Wage by State from 1968 to 2020

The Basics

• What is this? In the United States, states and the federal government set minimum hourly pay ("minimum wage") that workers can receive to ensure that citizens experience a minimum quality of life. This dataset provides the minimum wage data set by each state and the federal government from 1968 to 2020.

• Why did you put this together? While looking online for a clean dataset for minimum wage data by state, I was having trouble finding one. I decided to create one myself and provide it to the community.

• Who do we thank for this data? The United States Department of Labor compiles a table of this data on their website. I took the time to clean it up and provide it here for you. :) The GitHub repository (with R Code for the cleaning process) can be found here!

Content

This is a cleaned dataset of US state and federal minimum wages from 1968 to 2020 (including 2020 equivalency values). The data was scraped from the United States Department of Labor's table of minimum wage by state.

Description of Data

The values in the dataset are as follows: - Year: The year of the data. All minimum wage values are as of January 1 except 1968 and 1969, which are as of February 1. - State: The state or territory of the data. - State.Minimum.Wage: The actual State's minimum wage on January 1 of Year. - State.Minimum.Wage.2020.Dollars: The State.Minimum.Wage in 2020 dollars. - Federal.Minimum.Wage: The federal minimum wage on January 1 of Year. - Federal.Minimum.Wage.2020.Dollars: The Federal.Minimum.Wage in 2020 dollars. - Effective.Minimum.Wage: The minimum wage that is enforced in State on January 1 of Year. Because the federal minimum wage takes effect if the State's minimum wage is lower than the federal minimum wage, this is the higher of the two. - Effective.Minimum.Wage.2020.Dollars: The Effective.Minimum.Wage in 2020 dollars. - CPI.Average: The average value of the Consumer Price Index in Year. When I pulled the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I selected the dataset with "all items in U.S. city average, all urban consumers, not seasonally adjusted". - Department.Of.Labor.Uncleaned.Data: The unclean, scraped value from the Department of Labor's website. - Department.Of.Labor.Cleaned.Low.Value: The State's lowest enforced minimum wage on January 1 of Year. If there is only one minimum wage, this and the value for Department.Of.Labor.Cleaned.High.Value are identical. (Some states enforce different minimum wage laws depending on the size of the business. In states where this is the case, generally, smaller businesses have slightly lower minimum wage requirements.) - Department.Of.Labor.Cleaned.Low.Value.2020.Dollars: The Department.Of.Labor.Cleaned.Low.Value in 2020 dollars. - Department.Of.Labor.Cleaned.High.Value: The State's higher enforced minimum wage on January 1 of Year. If there is only one minimum wage, this and the value for Department.Of.Labor.Cleaned.Low.Value are identical. - Department.Of.Labor.Cleaned.High.Value.2020.Dollars: The Department.Of.Labor.Cleaned.High.Value in 2020 dollars. - Footnote: The footnote provided on the Department of Labor's website. See more below.

Data Footnotes

As laws differ significantly from territory to territory, especially relating to whom is protected by minimum wage laws, the following footnotes are located throughout the data in Footnote to add more context to the minimum wage. The original footnotes can be found here.

--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---

Graph and download economic data for State Minimum Wage Rate for Massachusetts (STTMINWGMA) from 1968 to 2025 about minimum wage, MA, wages, rate, and USA.

Graph and download economic data for State Minimum Wage Rate for Colorado (STTMINWGCO) from 1968 to 2025 about minimum wage, CO, wages, rate, and USA.