This year, 22 states are raising their minimum wage, impacting almost 10 million workers across the country.
Many states raise the minimum wage each year to adjust to a cost of living index, while others have raised the pay floor for delivery drivers and fast-food workers. Today, the federal minimum wage stands at $7.25, a rate that has remained the same for 15 years.
This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld, shows the states with the highest minimum wage in America, based on data from Bloomberg Law.
The Highest Minimum Wages, by State
Here are the states with the highest minimum wage as of January 1, 2024:
1 District of Columbia: Indexes hourly minimum wage rate to inflation
2 New Jersey: Seasonal/small employer with five employees or less= $13.90, agricultural employers= $12.81, long term care facility direct care staff= $18.13
3 New York: New York City, Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester counties= $16.00
4 Oregon: Indexes hourly minimum wage rate to inflation. Nonurban counties= $13.20, Portland metro= $15.45
The District of Columbia has the highest minimum wage in the country, at $17 an hour.
Next in line is Washington state, where the minimum wage was raised to $16.28 an hour at the start of the year, up from $15.74. Both jurisdictions tie their minimum wage increases to inflation, along with several of the states on this list such as New York, Colorado, and Arizona.
With the largest planned increase nationally, Hawaii is raising its minimum wage to $18 an hour by 2028. Currently, the minimum wage stands at $14 an hour in the Aloha State.
As we can see, many of the top states have minimum wages that are more than double the federal minimum wage, which has declined in real value for many years. For context, the real value of the federal minimum wage hit a peak in 1970, where it would be worth $12.61 today.
California’s New Fast-Food Wage Hike
Fast-food workers in California recently received a pay bump after a new law raised the minimum wage to $20 an hour, $4 more than the state’s minimum wage.
In response, Pizza Hut announced it was laying off over 1,200 delivery drivers, while McDonalds said that it would increase prices in California due to higher wage costs. Other chain operators are reducing hours, while El Pollo Loco plans to automate part of how it makes salsa.
Affecting half a million workers at 33,000 restaurants, the law applies to chains with 60 or more locations across the country, making it the highest minimum wage in America.
