The minimum wage is set to go up in 24 states and 48 cities and counties in 2020, according to the advocacy group National Employment Law Project (NELP).
On Jan. 1, 20 states and 26 cities and counties, mostly in California, raised the minimum wages. Four more states and 23 more cities and counties will join later in the year, according to NELP. New York raised its minimum wage to $11.80 on Dec. 31.
In 2019, the House of Representatives passed the Raise the Wage Act, to make a $15 an hour minimum wage a national standard. However, the bill didn’t make it past the Senate.
The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Georgia and Wyoming have a $5.15 minimum wage. Most minimum wage workers in these states are paid the federal wage due to the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Five states — Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee — have no minimum wage and default to the federal minimum.
The states that raised their wages at the start of 2020, or will later this year, include:
- Alaska, with an hourly increase from $9.89 to $10.19
- Arizona, $11 to $12
- Arkansas, $9.25 to $10
- California, $12 to $13
- Colorado, $11.10 to $12
- Connecticut, $11 to $12 on Sept. 1
- Florida, $8.46 to $8.56
- Illinois, $8.25 to $9.25
- Maine, $11 to $12
- Maryland, $10.10 to $11
- Massachusetts, $12 to $12.75
- Michigan, $9.45 to $9.65
- Minnesota (large employers), $9.86 to $10;Minnesota (small employers) $8.04 to $8.15
- Missouri, $8.60 to $9.45
- Montana, $8.50 to $8.65
- Nevada (workers with employer health benefits) $7.25 to $8 on July; Nevada (workers without employer health benefits) $8.25 to $9 on July 1
- New Jersey, $10 to $11
- New Mexico, $7.50 to $9
- New York, $11.80 on Dec. 31., 2019
- Ohio, $8.55 to $8.70
- Oregon, $11.25 to $12 on July 1
- South Dakota, $9.10 to $9.30
- Vermont, $10.78 to $10.96
- Washington, $12 to $13.50
Washington, D.C. will raise its minimum wage from $14 to $15 in the middle of the year.
