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.

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.

Graph and download economic data for Wage and Salary Workers Paid Below Prevailing Federal Minimum Wage: 16 Years and Over: High School Graduates, no College (HDNCC4) from 2002 to 2024 about no college, paid, secondary schooling, secondary, minimum wage, salaries, workers, 16 years +, education, federal, wages, and USA.

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 ---

State Minimum Wage Rate for California was 16.50000 $ per Hour in January of 2025, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, State Minimum Wage Rate for California reached a record high of 16.50000 in January of 2025 and a record low of 1.65000 in January of 1969. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for State Minimum Wage Rate for California - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on June of 2025.

This feature layer consists of the contiguous United States and District of Columbia, with Alaska and Hawaii. It comprises state minimum wage data for 2018, as well as historical data since 1968, and future data where available. The data was compiled from the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Conference of State Legislatures, and the U.C. Berkeley Labor Center, with living wage data from MIT's Living Wage Calculator. This layer uses the composite geographies layout to position Alaska and Hawaii adjacent to the contiguous United States.Attributes:

Field Name Unit Description

PeakMW Nominal dollar value Highest minimum wage value planned to be reached in future years (2019-2022)

PeakYR Year The year that the highest minimum wage value is planned to be reached (2019-2022)

DiffPeak2018 Nominal dollar value (difference) The difference between the peak minimum wage and the 2018 minimum wage (PeakMW - DiffPeak2018)

MW2018 Nominal dollar value 2018 state minimum wage

Increase2017 Nominal dollar value (difference) The difference between the 2018 minimum wage and the 2017 minimum wage (MW2018 - MW2017)

Increase2000 2017 dollar value (difference) The difference between the 2018 minimum wage and the 2000 minimum wage (MW2018-MW2000)

Effective2018 Nominal dollar value The minimum wage effective in 2018. For states with minimum wages below the federal minimum wage of $7.25, or for states that have no minimum wage requirement, the federal minimum wage applies.

LV2016 Nominal dollar value 2016 living wage for a single adult at the state level

DiffMWLV Nominal dollar value (difference) The difference between the 2018 minimum wage and the 2016 living wage

CurrentMW Category The type of minimum wage policy in place at the state level

PoliciesMW Text When a state has an indexed minimum wage, the type of policy is described here

Update2018 Category Yes = the state implemented an update to its minimum wage in 2018; No = no policy update in 2018

MW2017 Nominal dollar value 2017 minimum wage

MW2016 2017 dollar value 2016 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW2015 2017 dollar value 2015 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW2014 2017 dollar value 2014 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW2013 2017 dollar value 2013 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW2012 2017 dollar value 2012 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW2011 2017 dollar value 2011 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW2010 2017 dollar value 2010 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW2009 2017 dollar value 2009 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW2008 2017 dollar value 2008 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW2007 2017 dollar value 2007 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW2006 2017 dollar value 2006 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW2005 2017 dollar value 2005 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW2004 2017 dollar value 2004 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW2003 2017 dollar value 2003 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW2002 2017 dollar value 2002 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW2001 2017 dollar value 2001 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW2000 2017 dollar value 2000 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW1998 2017 dollar value 1998 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW1997 2017 dollar value 1997 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW1996 2017 dollar value 1996 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW1994 2017 dollar value 1994 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW1992 2017 dollar value 1992 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW1991 2017 dollar value 1991 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW1988 2017 dollar value 1988 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW1981 2017 dollar value 1981 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW1980 2017 dollar value 1980 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW1979 2017 dollar value 1979 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW1976 2017 dollar value 1976 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW1972 2017 dollar value 1972 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW1970 2017 dollar value 1970 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

MW1968 2017 dollar value 1968 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation to 2017 dollars

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.

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.

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 an April 2024 online survey, an overwhelming majority of respondents in the United States said that **** U.S. dollars per hour is not enough for the average American worker to have a decent quality of life. The U.S. federal minimum wage has not been raised since 2009. Since then, many states have raised the wage, with a number of states having more than doubled the federal minimum.

Graph and download economic data for State Minimum Wage Rate for Virginia (STTMINWGVA) from 1976 to 2025 about minimum wage, VA, wages, rate, and USA.

This feature layer comprises six U.S. counties that have implemented local minimum wages. Attributes include the 2018 minimum wage, any future increases to the minimum wage, the living wage (2016 update, state level, single adult), and the date of minimum wage policy implementation, among other attributes. This layer uses the composite geographies layout in order to position Alaska and Hawaii adjacent to the contiguous U.S. Data was digitized from the U.C. Berkeley Labor Center; living wage data was provided by MIT's Living Wage Calculator.

Field Unit Description

AFFGEOID Text County GEOID

STATEFP Integer State FIPS Code (number)

STABBR Text State Abbreviation

State Text State Name

Locality Text County Name

PrevMW US Dollars Previous minimum wage at the time of implementing a locality minimum wage

PolicyStart Year Start year for implementing locality minimum wage

MW2018 US Dollars 2018 Locality Minimum Wage

DateMW2018 M/D/Y Date of implementation for 2018 locality minimum wage

HighestMW US Dollars Highest planned locality minimum wage

DateHighest Year Year of achieving highest locality minimum wage

AboveStateMW US Dollars (difference) Dollar value that locality minimum wage is above the state minimum wage (MW2018-StateMW2018)

StateMW2018 US Dollars 2018 State Minimum Wage

BelowLV2016 US Dollars (difference) Difference between locality minimum wage and 2016 state living wage (LV2016-MW2018); positive values are below the living wage, negative values are above the living wage

LV2016 US Dollars Living Wage (2016 Update)

Graph and download economic data for Wage and Salary Workers Paid Below Prevailing Federal Minimum Wage: 16 Years and Over: High School Graduates or more (HSGDC8) from 2002 to 2024 about paid, secondary schooling, secondary, minimum wage, salaries, workers, 16 years +, education, federal, wages, and USA.

State Minimum Wage Rate for New Hampshire was 7.25000 $ per Hour in January of 2025, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, State Minimum Wage Rate for New Hampshire reached a record high of 7.25000 in January of 2009 and a record low of 1.40000 in January of 1969. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for State Minimum Wage Rate for New Hampshire - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on July of 2025.

Federal Hourly Minimum Wage data was reported at 7.250 USD/Hour in Apr 2025. This stayed constant from the previous number of 7.250 USD/Hour for Mar 2025. Federal Hourly Minimum Wage data is updated monthly, averaging 3.350 USD/Hour from Oct 1938 (Median) to Apr 2025, with 1039 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 7.250 USD/Hour in Apr 2025 and a record low of 0.250 USD/Hour in Sep 1939. Federal Hourly Minimum Wage data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.G: Federal Hourly Minimum Wage.

State Minimum Wage Rate for Florida was 13.00000 $ per Hour in January of 2025, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, State Minimum Wage Rate for Florida reached a record high of 13.00000 in January of 2025 and a record low of 6.40000 in January of 2006. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for State Minimum Wage Rate for Florida - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on July of 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.

This statistic shows the number of workers paid hourly rates at or below prevailing federal minimum wage in the United States in 2023, by race or ethnicity. In 2023, about 666,000 white people were paid at or below the federal minimum wage.

Graph and download economic data for Wage and Salary Workers Paid at or Below Prevailing Federal Minimum Wage: 16 Years and Over: 4 Years of High School, no Diploma (HS4NC2) from 2002 to 2024 about 4-years, paid, secondary schooling, secondary, minimum wage, salaries, workers, education, federal, wages, and USA.

In an April 2024 online survey, an overwhelming majority of respondents in the United States, regardless of which political party they identified with, said that **** U.S. dollars per hour is not enough for the average American worker to have a decent quality of life. The U.S. federal minimum wage has not been raised since 2009. Since then, many states have raised the wage, with a number of states having more than doubled the federal minimum.