The U.S. Minimum Wage By State

California voters last week rejected a ballot measure to increase the state's minimum wage from $16 to $18 an hour. The question was posed during the U.S. election on November 5, but the results were only finalized two weeks later due to the narrow margin of the measure's defeat. The result was an unexpected one in a blue state like California, but also fell in line with other election results from this year, like Californians voting to reverse parts of criminal justice reform and deciding not to ban forced prison labor.

The United States is made up of a patchwork of minimum wage laws with 30 states and D.C. having a rate higher than the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour. This is according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. California's current rate of $16 ranks towards the top of the country and is only surpassed by the minimum wages of Washington and Washington D.C., while matched by those in New York City and the Portland metro area. The federal minimum wage was first introduced under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 which also established overtime and child labor standards for full-time and part-time workers. 

Across the country, five U.S. states have not adopted a minimum wage - Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee. Another two, Georgia and Wyoming, have a minimum wage below the $7.25 federal minimum. In all seven of those states, the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour applies in accordance to the Fair Labor Standards Act, even though there are exceptions to its coverage. A handful of other states, among them New Jersey, New York and Ohio, also carve out exceptions for smaller employers and there are several more exceptions from minimum wage depending on the state.