---
title: "5 facts about the minimum wage"
description: "While the idea of raising the minimum wage is broadly popular, efforts to do so at the national level have stalled. We gathered key facts looking at the issue. "
date: "2017-01-04"
authors:
  - name: "Drew DeSilver"
    job_title: "Senior Writer/Editor"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/drew-desilver/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/01/04/5-facts-about-the-minimum-wage/"
categories:
  - "Business & Workplace"
  - "Economic Inequality"
  - "Income & Wages"
---

# 5 facts about the minimum wage

[![](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2017/01/FT_17.01.03_minWage_1938_2016.png)](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/01/04/5-facts-about-the-minimum-wage/ft_17-01-03_minwage_1938_2016/)

Even though the federal minimum wage has remained at $7.25 an hour since 2009, most Americans are now covered by higher minimums set by state and local laws – from [Los Angeles](http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-minimum-wage-hike-20150518-story.html#page=1) to [New York state](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/23/nyregion/new-york-minimum-wage-fast-food-workers.html?smid=tw-bna&_r=0) to [Washington, D.C.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/in-nations-capital-15-hour-minimum-wage-expected-to-appear-on-2016-ballot/2015/07/22/bdd9f66a-3086-11e5-97ae-30a30cca95d7_story.html) Organized labor and anti-poverty groups continue to push for $15 an hour as the new standard for all workers paid hourly, though given Republican control of Congress that prospect appears dim.

[![](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/5_4.png)](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/08/18/5-issues-and-the-2016-campaign/#clinton-and-trump-supporters-at-odds-over-15-minimum-wage)

While the idea of raising the minimum wage is broadly popular, a [Pew Research Center survey](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/08/18/5-issues-and-the-2016-campaign/#clinton-and-trump-supporters-at-odds-over-15-minimum-wage) this past August found clear partisan and racial differences in support. Overall, 52% of people favored increasing the federal minimum to $15 an hour, but that idea was favored by just 21% of Trump supporters (versus 82% of Clinton backers). And while large majorities of blacks and Hispanics supported a $15 federal minimum wage, 54% of whites opposed it,

Here are five facts about the minimum wage and the people who earn it:

**Adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum wage peaked in 1968** at $8.68 (in 2016 dollars). Since it was last raised in 2009, to the current $7.25 per hour, the federal minimum has lost about 9.6% of its purchasing power to inflation. Back in 2015, [The Economist](http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/05/minimum-wages) estimated that, given how rich the U.S. is and the pattern among other advanced economies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, "one would expect America ... to pay a minimum wage around $12 an hour."

**Less than half (45%) of the 2.6 million hourly workers who were at or below the federal minimum in 2015 were ages 16 to 24. **An additional 23.3% are ages 25 to 34, according to the [Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/minimum-wage/2015/home.htm); both shares have stayed more or less constant over the past decade. That 2.6 million represents less than 2% of all wage and salary workers. (See more about the [demographics of minimum-wage workers](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/09/08/who-makes-minimum-wage/).)

[![](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2017/01/FT_17.01.03_minWage_by_state.png)](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/01/04/5-facts-about-the-minimum-wage/ft_17-01-03_minwage_by_state/)

**Twenty-nine states, plus the District of Columbia and nearly two dozen cities and counties, have set their own higher minimums. **State hourly minimums range from $7.50 in New Mexico to $11.50 in D.C., according to the U.S. Department of Labor's [Wage and Hour Division](https://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/america.htm). Together, these states include about 61% of the nation's working-age (16 and over) population, according to our analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. Among the cities that have enacted even higher local minimums are San Francisco ($15 by 2018), Seattle ($15 by 2021), Chicago ($13 by 2019) and San Diego ($11.50 by 2017), according to the [National Employment Law Project](http://www.nelp.org/content/uploads/City-Minimum-Wage-Laws-Recent-Trends-Economic-Evidence.pdf). And in 12 states, the minimum wage rises automatically each year based on a cost-of-living formula.

**About 20.6 million people (or 30% of all hourly, non-self-employed workers 18 and older) are "near-minimum-wage" workers. **We analyzed public-use microdata from the Current Population Survey (the same monthly survey that underpins the BLS’s wage and employment reports), and came up with that estimate of the total number of ["near-minimum" U.S. workers](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/11/05/making-more-than-minimum-wage-but-less-than-10-10-an-hour/) – those who make more than the minimum wage in their state but less than $10.10 an hour, and therefore also would benefit if the federal minimum is raised to that amount. The near-minimum-wage workers are young (just under half are 30 or younger), mostly white (76%), and more likely to be female (54%) than male (46%). A majority (56%) have no more than a high-school education.

[![](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/FT_14.11.14_lowWageIndOcc.png)](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/11/17/where-near-minimum-wage-workers-work-and-how-much-they-make/)

**The restaurant/food service industry is the single biggest employer of near-minimum-wage workers. **Our analysis [also found](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/11/17/where-near-minimum-wage-workers-work-and-how-much-they-make/) that 3.75 million people making near-minimum wages (about 18% of the total) worked in that industry. Among near-minimum workers aged 30 and younger, about 2.5 million (or nearly a quarter of all near-minimum workers in that age bracket) work in restaurants or other food-service industries. But because many of those workers presumably are tipped, their actual gross pay may be above $10.10 an hour. (Federal law, as well as wage laws in many states, allows [tipped employees](http://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm) to be paid less as long as “tip credits” bring their pay up to at least the applicable minimum.)

*Correction: A previous version of the state minimum wage graphic reversed the colors of two states in the map only (the list was correct). *

*Note: This is an update of a post originally published in December 2013 and previously updated in July 2015.*

*Related posts:*

*[10 facts about American workers](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/09/01/8-facts-about-american-workers/)*

*[Who makes minimum wage?](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/09/08/who-makes-minimum-wage/)*