What is the highest state that pays minimum wage?
Emily Baldwin
Published Jan 23, 2026
* Florida’s $8.65 wage will go into effect 9/30/21. Excluding Washington, D.C.’s $15.20 hourly minimum wage, California has the highest in the country at $14 per hour….States with minimum wage increases in 2021:
| State | Alaska |
|---|---|
| 2020 Minimum Wage | $10.19 |
| 2021 Minimum Wage | $10.34 |
| Effective Date | 1/1/21 |
How can states have lower minimum wage than federal?
A state with its own law can make the wage lower, equal to or higher than the federal minimum wage. Federal minimum wage overrides state if the state wage is lower. It doesn’t if the state wage is higher.
Are there any states that have no minimum wage?
As of January 1, 2021, there were five states without minimum wage laws, two states with minimum wages below the federal minimum, 14 states with minimum wages at the federal level, and 29 states, plus Washington, DC, with minimum wages above the federal level, according to the Department of Labor.
What’s the difference between the federal and state minimum wage?
While the federal minimum wage is $7.25, most states and nearly all cities have higher minimum wages, with the result that over 90% of American minimum wage workers earn more than the federal minimum wage. The effective nationwide minimum wage, (the wage that the median minimum wage worker earns),…
How many people work at the federal minimum wage?
Today, only 1.9% of hourly workers do. The number of federal minimum wage workers has decreased from 7.7 million in 1980 to 1.6 million in 2019. This is partly due to states establishing higher minimum wages than the federal level. The share of hourly workers at or below federal minimum wage peaked in the early 1980s.
What’s the minimum wage in the state of Massachusetts?
Washington and Massachusetts are close behind, with $13.69 per hour and $13.50 per hour, respectively. A USAFacts analysis of Labor Department data estimates 1.7 million workers – roughly 2% of all hourly non-self-employed workers – earned wages at or below the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour in 2018.
