# Minimum Wage The **federal minimum wage** is **$7.25 an hour**, where it has been since **July 24, 2009**. That is the longest stretch without a raise since the floor was created by the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. The previous record gap, 1997 to 2007, was just under ten years. A full-time job at $7.25 pays $15,080 a year, which is below the 2025 federal poverty line for a single person ($15,650). Inflation has cut the wage's buying power by about 30% since 2009. With Washington frozen, the real minimum wage is now set by states, cities and voters. That split makes it one of the clearest tests of who sets economic policy, and for whom. ## Where the floor actually is (2026) - **30 states plus DC** have minimums above $7.25 (Department of Labor table, July 1, 2026). - **17 states plus DC** were at $15 or more as of July 1, 2026; **Florida** joined on Sept 30, 2026. - **19 states** raised their minimums on Jan 1, 2026, lifting pay for more than 8.3 million workers (Economic Policy Institute). - **20 states** still sit at $7.25 or have no state minimum at all. Five have no minimum-wage law (Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee), so the federal floor applies to covered workers. - About **25 states** bar their cities and counties from setting a higher local minimum (Economic Policy Institute preemption data). State preemption is how a red legislature overrides a blue city. ## The federal bills | Bill | Sponsors | What it does | Status | |---|---|---|---| | **Raise the Wage Act of 2025** (S.1332) | [[Bernie Sanders]]; Rep. Bobby Scott in the House | $17 by 2030, then indexed to median wages; phases out the lower "subminimum" wages for tipped workers, young workers and workers with disabilities | Introduced April 8, 2025; no action | | **Higher Wages for American Workers Act** (S.2013) | [[Josh Hawley]] (R-Mo.) with Peter Welch (D-Vt.) | $15 the year after enactment, then indexed to inflation | Introduced June 10, 2025; no action | Asked about Hawley's bill on June 18, 2025, [[Donald Trump]] said he had not seen it and would "have to speak to Josh," adding that "some people say it really turns away business." ## The economics, briefly The textbook prediction is that a higher floor costs jobs. The modern evidence is more mixed: - **Card and Krueger (1994)** compared fast-food restaurants on both sides of the New Jersey–Pennsylvania border after New Jersey raised its wage in 1992 and found "no indication that the rise in the minimum wage reduced employment." The study helped win David Card a share of the 2021 economics Nobel. - **Critics** led by David Neumark and William Wascher (2000) disputed the result using payroll records, and a 2017–2022 study of Seattle's increase found reduced hours for low-wage workers. - **The CBO's 2021 estimate** for a $15 federal minimum: about **1.4 million fewer jobs** on average, but **0.9 million people lifted out of poverty** and raises for millions more. ## The politics - **Voters keep raising it, even in red states.** Ballot measures have passed in places whose legislatures would not act. Florida's $15, reached on Sept 30, 2026, was set by voters in 2020, and Missouri voters approved $15 in 2024. Legislatures sometimes claw back the parts voters approved: in 2025 Missouri's legislature repealed the inflation indexing and paid sick leave from its 2024 voter-passed measure, while the $15 rate stands. - **But not always.** [[Oklahoma State Question 832]], a $15-by-2029 initiative, **failed 44.6% to 55.4%** on June 16, 2026. Gov. [[Kevin Stitt]] had placed it on a low-turnout June ballot rather than the November 2024 general election. California and Massachusetts voters also rejected wage measures in 2024. - **The populist-right crack.** Hawley's $15 bill is the clearest sign that part of the Republican coalition now treats the wage floor as a working-class issue rather than a business-cost issue. It has not moved, and party leaders have not embraced it. ## Why it's on the map The frozen federal floor is one of the cleanest examples of policy captured by inaction: no vote is needed to let inflation do the cutting. The fight now runs through state preemption laws, ballot initiatives and legislatures overriding voters, all mechanisms this wiki tracks. It feeds directly into the 2026 [[Affordability]] argument, [[Real Wages]], and the [[K-Shaped Economy]]. ## See also - [[Real Wages]] · [[Wage Growth vs Productivity]] · [[Poverty Rate]] - [[Labor Movement]] · [[Economic Policy Institute]] · [[Department of Labor]] - [[Affordability]] · [[K-Shaped Economy]] · [[State of the US Economy]] - [[Oklahoma State Question 832]] · [[Josh Hawley]] · [[Bernie Sanders]]