Minimum Wage by State 2026: Every State's Rate, Tipped Wage, and 2027 Increases

As of October 3, 2026, the federal minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour, the same rate it has been since July 24, 2009. That is 6,280 days, the longest stretch without a raise since the federal minimum was created in 1938. Meanwhile 18 states and the District of Columbia now set a floor of $15.00 or more, while 20 states still effectively pay $7.25. The highest statewide rate is Washington's $17.13, the highest overall is DC's $18.40, and a handful of Seattle-area cities have passed $21. This report lists the current rate in every state, the tipped cash wage, the mid-2026 changes, and every 2027 increase announced so far, using the U.S. Department of Labor, state labor agencies, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Key Findings at a Glance

• The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since July 24, 2009, unchanged for over 17 years (U.S. Department of Labor, history of federal minimum wage rates).
• After inflation, $7.25 today buys what $4.66 bought in July 2009. To match its 2009 purchasing power it would need to be about $11.28 (our calculation from BLS CPI-U, July 2009 to August 2026).
• A full-time, year-round job at $7.25 pays $15,080, which is below the 2026 federal poverty guideline for a single person ($15,960) (HHS ASPE 2026 poverty guidelines).
• 18 states plus DC have a minimum wage of $15.00 or more as of October 2026; 20 states sit at the federal $7.25, either because they have no minimum wage law, a state rate below $7.25, or a rate equal to it (DOL state minimum wage laws).
• 19 states raised their minimum wage on January 1, 2026, lifting pay for more than 8.3 million workers by a combined $5 billion (Economic Policy Institute).
• Three jurisdictions changed mid-year: DC ($18.40) and Oregon ($15.55 standard) on July 1, and Florida ($15.00) on September 30, 2026 (DC DOES, Oregon BOLI, Lowndes summary of FloridaCommerce notice).
• In 2024, 82,000 hourly workers earned exactly $7.25 and 760,000 earned less (legal in some tipped, youth, and exempt situations), together about 1.0% of the 80.3 million workers paid by the hour (BLS, Characteristics of minimum wage workers, 2024).

Minimum Wage by State: Full Table (October 2026)

Rates below are the general statewide minimum in effect on October 3, 2026. "Tipped cash wage" is the lowest hourly amount an employer may pay directly to a tipped worker before tips; where it equals the full rate, the state does not allow a tip credit. Where state law sets no rate or a rate below $7.25, the federal $7.25 applies to most employers covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Sources: DOL State Minimum Wage Laws and Minimum Wages for Tipped Employees (both updated July 1, 2026), plus the state announcements cited in the sections below. Some states set lower rates for small employers, minors, trainees, or agricultural work (for example Ohio's $11.00 applies to employers with more than $405,000 in annual gross receipts, Montana's to businesses with more than $110,000 in sales, and New Jersey's small and seasonal employers pay $15.23 in 2026).

If you want to see what one of these rates means after taxes, our hourly paycheck calculator runs the full federal, FICA, and state math, and there are state versions for California, New York, Florida, and Texas.

The Highest Minimum Wages in 2026

DC has the highest minimum wage of any state-level jurisdiction at $18.40, followed by Washington, New York's downstate region, Connecticut, and California. Seven more states sit at exactly $15.00: Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Nebraska.

Where the $15 line falls

Counting each state's highest general rate, these are the 18 states (plus DC) at $15.00 or above on October 3, 2026: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington. Florida is the newest member, crossing $15.00 on September 30, 2026, the final step of the schedule voters approved as Amendment 2 in 2020. The tipped cash wage in Florida rose to $11.98 on the same day because the state's tip credit is fixed at $3.02 (Lowndes, summarizing the FloridaCommerce notice).

Virginia will join the group on January 1, 2028. In 2026, Governor Abigail Spanberger signed legislation codifying the current $12.77 rate, raising it to $13.75 in 2027 and $15.00 in 2028, with inflation adjustments after that (Washington Examiner).

Highest City and County Minimum Wages

Local ordinances push the floor well past any state rate. The Seattle area leads the country, with several cities now above $21 an hour in 2026.

Washington's own statewide rate, $17.13, is the highest of any state, and it rises to $17.73 on January 1, 2027 (Washington L&I).

States Stuck at $7.25

Twenty states effectively pay the federal minimum, and they fall into three groups:

• No state minimum wage law (5): Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
• State rate below $7.25 (3): Georgia ($5.15 for employers with 6 or more employees), Wyoming ($5.15), and Oklahoma ($2.00 for some employers, otherwise adopting the federal rate). In all three, the federal $7.25 applies to employers covered by the FLSA.
• State rate equal to $7.25 (12): Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin.

Source: DOL State Minimum Wage Laws, updated July 1, 2026.

Pennsylvania stands out in that list: every one of its six neighbors (New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, and Ohio) has a higher minimum wage, and its tipped cash wage of $2.83 is only 70 cents above the federal $2.13.

The Federal Minimum Wage After 17 Years

The FLSA minimum rose to $7.25 on July 24, 2009, the last of three steps set by the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. As of October 3, 2026, that is 6,280 days without an increase, far longer than the previous record gap of 9 years and 9 months, from September 1997 to July 2007 (DOL history chart).

Inflation has done the cutting instead. Using the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), which stood at 215.351 in July 2009 and 334.980 in August 2026, $7.25 has lost about 35.7% of its purchasing power.

Sources: BLS CPI-U; HHS ASPE; DOL Tips.

Who Earns the Minimum Wage

The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts hourly workers paid at or below the federal minimum each year. The latest edition, covering 2024 and published in June 2025, found:

• 80.3 million workers were paid hourly, 55.6% of all wage and salary workers.
• 82,000 earned exactly $7.25, and 760,000 earned less, about 1.0% of hourly workers combined. Pay below $7.25 can be legal for tipped workers paid a cash wage plus tips, some full-time students, and workers outside FLSA coverage.
• Leisure and hospitality had the highest share of hourly workers at or below the federal minimum, 5.6%, and accounted for about two-thirds of all such workers.
• Workers under 25 made up 43% of those at or below $7.25, though they are only about a fifth of hourly workers. Among teenagers, 2.6% earned the federal minimum or less.
• Part-time workers were four times as likely as full-time workers to earn the federal minimum or less (2.4% versus 0.6%).

Source: BLS Report 1115, Characteristics of minimum wage workers, 2024.

That 1% figure is easy to misread. It counts only people at or below the federal rate, so it leaves out the millions of workers earning their state's higher minimum, or just above it. EPI's count of 8.3 million workers getting a raise from state increases on January 1, 2026 is a better sense of how many paychecks move when minimums change (EPI).

Tipped Minimum Wages

Federal law lets employers pay tipped workers a cash wage of $2.13 an hour and count up to $5.12 of tips toward the $7.25 minimum, as long as tips actually make up the difference (DOL Tips). States split three ways:

• No tip credit (7 states): Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington require the full state minimum before tips (Guam does too).
• Higher cash wage: many states set a cash wage well above $2.13, such as Hawaii ($14.75), Arizona ($12.15), Colorado ($12.14), Florida ($11.98), New York food service ($11.35 downstate, $10.70 upstate), and DC ($10.30).
• Federal $2.13: 16 states still pay tipped workers the federal $2.13 cash wage, including Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, and Nebraska.

DC's tipped wage reflects a 2025 Council law that replaced the faster Initiative 82 phase-out with a slower schedule; the tipped cash wage rose from $10.00 to $10.30 on July 1, 2026 (DC DOES notice). In New York, the tipped food service cash wage pairs with a $5.65 tip credit downstate and $5.30 upstate (NY DOL tipped workers).

If you pay or are paid on a tip credit, the pay stub should show the cash wage, the tip credit, and the tips reported. Our restaurant pay stub template has separate lines for each.

2027 Increases Announced So Far

Indexed states announce next year's rate in late summer and fall. As of October 3, 2026, these January 1, 2027 rates are confirmed by the state:

Still to come: Arizona (its CPI formula points to about $15.65, per KTAR), Vermont (about $14.91 expected, per Bloomberg Tax), Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska's first cost-of-living adjustment. Alaska rises to $15.00 on July 1, 2027, and Oregon and DC adjust on July 1, 2027.

Two states are notable for not rising. Missouri reached $15.00 in January 2026, but a 2025 law (HB 567) repealed the inflation indexing voters approved in Proposition A, so no increase is scheduled (Littler). New York was due to begin indexing in 2027, but the state says the rate will stay at $17.00 and $16.00 because "one of the off-ramp conditions was met" (NY.gov).

What a Minimum Wage Change Looks Like on Your Pay Stub

When a rate changes mid-pay-period, hours worked before the effective date are paid at the old rate and hours on or after it at the new one. A Florida worker on a biweekly schedule ending in early October 2026, for example, should see hours through September 29 at $14.00 and hours from September 30 at $15.00. In states that require the hourly rates to be listed on the wage statement, such as California under Labor Code section 226, the stub should show both rates and the hours at each. Our guide to pay stub requirements by state lists what each state requires.

Two more checks worth making on the first stub after an increase:

1. Overtime follows the new rate. Time and a half is calculated on the regular rate in effect when the overtime was worked. Our overtime calculator shows the math.
2. Salaried exempt thresholds can move too. Several states tie the minimum salary for overtime-exempt employees to the minimum wage (California's is twice the state minimum for full-time work), so a minimum wage increase can also change who qualifies for overtime.

Need a stub that shows an hourly rate change correctly? The hourly pay stub template supports multiple earnings lines at different rates in the same period.

If you found this data useful, please cite as: "Minimum Wage by State 2026," makemypaystub.com, October 2026.

Methodology and Sources

Rates reflect the general state minimum wage in effect on October 3, 2026. Our baseline is the U.S. Department of Labor's state tables (updated July 1, 2026), cross-checked against state labor agency announcements for changes after that date (Florida, September 30) and for 2027 rates. Where a state has regional or employer-size tiers, we show the highest general rate and note the others. Local minimum wages are not reflected in the state table.

• U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division: State Minimum Wage Laws, Minimum Wages for Tipped Employees, History of Federal Minimum Wage Rates.
• Bureau of Labor Statistics: Characteristics of minimum wage workers, 2024 (Report 1115, June 2025); Consumer Price Index, CPI-U series CUUR0000SA0. Real-value figures are our calculation: 7.25 x (July 2009 CPI-U / later CPI-U).
• State agencies: California DIR, Washington L&I, Oregon BOLI, DC DOES, New York DOL, New Jersey DOL, Minnesota DLI, Ohio Department of Commerce, Maine DOL, Connecticut Governor's Office, Denver Department of Finance.
• Economic Policy Institute: January 1, 2026 increases analysis.
• HHS ASPE: 2026 Poverty Guidelines.

Last updated: October 3, 2026.