United States Minimum Wage Calculator

What this minimum wage calculator does

Minimum wage in the United States is not one number. There is a federal floor, fifty state rates sitting above or below it, dozens of city ordinances above those, and separate rules for particular industries. Working out what applies to you takes more than looking up one figure.

This calculator takes a state and a number of weekly hours and returns the pay at that state's minimum, broken down hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. There is an optional overtime mode for hours beyond a threshold you set.

One thing to know before you rely on it. The rates built in are the figures effective 1 January 2026, taken from the Department of Labor's consolidated table, and the result line states that date. Rates move, so the section below explains when and where to check.

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Rates move every January, so check the effective date

Most states now index their minimum wage to inflation, which means the rate changes automatically every year without any new law being passed. Around nineteen states raised theirs on 1 January 2026, and several more increase mid-year.

The rates here are the figures effective 1 January 2026, and the result line says so. That date matters more than it looks, because a stale table understates pay by real money. When these were last updated, the gap on the states that had moved looked like this:

Some of these have another rise already scheduled. Alaska goes to 14.00 on 1 July 2026, and the District of Columbia adjusts every July rather than every January.

Not every state moved. The fifteen or so that sit at the federal 7.25 are unchanged, because the federal rate has not moved since July 2009, which is now the longest stretch without a federal increase since the Fair Labor Standards Act was passed in 1938.

If you are reading this well after January 2026, check the Department of Labor's consolidated table, which is revised whenever a state rate changes and is linked in the references.

How to use it

1. Weekly Hours. Hours worked in a normal week.
2. State. Where you work, which is what determines the rate, not where your employer is based.
3. Regular overtime calculation. Tick this if you want overtime modelled, and two more fields appear.
4. Overtime after. The weekly hours threshold beyond which overtime applies. Forty is the federal standard.

Press Calculate. The overtime rate is fixed at 1.5, which is the federal multiplier.

Fill in both the hours and the state before calculating. Leaving the hours blank while selecting a state produces a row of results reading NaN rather than a helpful message. The reset button currently does not clear the fields either, so clear them by hand.

One caution on the overtime mode: the daily figure applies the overtime multiplier to all hours rather than only the ones above the threshold, so it will not reconcile with the weekly figure. Trust the weekly, monthly and yearly rows, and treat the daily one as indicative when overtime is switched on.

Georgia and Wyoming, and the federal floor

Select Georgia or Wyoming and the tool shows 7.25. Both states have a minimum wage statute setting 5.15, but that is not the rate anybody covered by federal law receives, so it is not the figure shown here.

Both statutes predate and sit below the federal floor. Where the Fair Labor Standards Act applies, and it applies to most employment, the federal rate of 7.25 prevails. Georgia's own statute says as much explicitly: it excludes from coverage any employment subject to the FLSA where the federal rate is higher.

The 5.15 figure applies only to a narrow set of employment outside federal coverage, which is why showing it as the headline rate would mislead almost everyone who looks.

The difference is not trivial. On a 40 hour week:

4,368 a year of difference, on a figure a low paid worker might reasonably act on.

The rule to hold on to is simple: where a state rate is lower than the federal one, the federal one applies. Where the state rate is higher, the state rate applies. You always get whichever is more favourable.

Five states have no minimum wage law at all: Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee. In those, the federal 7.25 is simply the rate. The tool shows 7.25 for them, which is correct.

A worked example

Forty hours a week at the federal minimum of 7.25.

Weekly: 7.25 × 40 = 290.00

Monthly: 290.00 × 4.3333 = 1,256.65

Yearly: 1,256.65 × 12 = 15,079.85

Fifteen thousand and eighty dollars a year, before tax, for full time work at the federal floor.

The same forty hours across a few states:

The gap between the federal floor and the highest rate in the country is more than 22,000 a year for identical hours, decided entirely by which side of a state line the work happens on.

One small note on the annual arithmetic. The tool multiplies weekly pay by 4.3333 to get a month, then by twelve, which comes to 51.9995 weeks rather than the 52.18 weeks a year actually contains. The difference is about fifty dollars a year at the federal rate. Immaterial for planning, worth knowing if you are reconciling to the cent.

Where the rates stand in 2026

The shape of it, as of the Department of Labor's table revised on 1 January 2026:

The federal minimum wage is 7.25, unchanged since July 2009.

Thirty states and the District of Columbia set a rate above it. The District of Columbia is highest at 17.95, with a further increase due on 1 July 2026. Among states, Washington leads at 17.13, followed by Connecticut at 16.94 and California at 16.90.

Eighteen states plus DC now sit at or above 15.00. Michigan is scheduled to reach 15.00 on 1 January 2027.

Fifteen states use the federal rate. Five of those have no state law at all; the rest have set their rate at 7.25. Georgia and Wyoming have state rates below the federal floor, which as covered above does not mean anybody is paid less.

Not every increase lands on 1 January. Alaska rises on 1 July 2026, Oregon adjusts on 1 July, the District of Columbia adjusts on 1 July, and Florida rises on 30 September. If you are checking a rate mid-year, check whether your state has a scheduled change coming.

Industry specific rates exist too. California sets a separate minimum of 20.00 an hour for fast food workers at chains with sixty or more locations, and a separate schedule for healthcare workers.

Your city may set its own

State rates are a floor, not a ceiling, and many cities and counties set higher ones. Where they do, the local rate applies.

The scale of this is larger than most people realise. Sixty or more cities and counties implemented increases across 2026, and at least twenty nine California cities plus eight Washington localities set rates above their already high state minimums.

So the order of precedence, from the bottom up, runs: federal floor, then state rate if higher, then local ordinance if higher still. You are entitled to the highest of the three that applies to where you work.

This calculator only knows state rates, so if you work in a city with its own ordinance the figure here will be too low. Your city or county government publishes the rate, and it is worth checking rather than assuming the state figure is the whole story, particularly on the west coast where local rates frequently exceed state ones by two or three dollars.

Tipped work has its own arrangement in most states, where an employer may pay a lower cash wage provided tips bring the total to at least the full minimum. Some states, California among them, do not permit a tip credit at all and require the full rate in cash before tips. This tool does not model tipped wages.

Reading the annual figure

The yearly number this tool produces assumes fifty two paid weeks at the same hours, which is worth holding lightly.

Minimum wage work is disproportionately part time, seasonal and variable. A figure built on a steady forty hour week will overstate what many people in these jobs actually earn across a year, because the hours are not guaranteed and slow weeks are not made up.

It is also a gross figure. Income tax, Social Security and Medicare come out before anything reaches an account, and our salary calculator handles the conversion between hourly and annual pay with unpaid time factored in.

Two comparisons that put the annual figure in context.

Against inflation. The federal rate has been fixed since 2009 while prices have risen substantially over that period. Running 7.25 from 2009 through our inflation calculator shows how much purchasing power a frozen nominal rate loses over fifteen years, and it is the single clearest argument in the whole debate about it.

Against a living wage. A minimum wage is a legal floor, not an estimate of what it costs to live somewhere. Researchers publish living wage estimates by area, covering housing, food, healthcare and transport, and in most of the country the minimum sits below them. The gap is widest in expensive states that follow the federal rate.

Questions people ask

What is the federal minimum wage?

7.25 an hour, unchanged since July 2009. That is the longest period without an increase since the Fair Labor Standards Act was enacted in 1938.

Georgia shows 5.15. Is that right?

It is the state statute, but not the rate anyone covered by federal law receives. Where the FLSA applies, the federal 7.25 prevails. Same for Wyoming.

Which state has the highest minimum wage?

Washington at 17.13 as of January 2026. The District of Columbia is higher still at 17.95, with another rise due in July 2026.

Are the rates in this tool current?

They are the figures effective 1 January 2026, taken from the Department of Labor's consolidated table, and the result line states that date. Rates change every January and some change mid-year, so check the DOL table if you are reading this much later. See the section above.

Does it include city minimum wages?

No, state rates only. Sixty or more localities raised their own rates in 2026 and many sit well above their state figure. Your city or county publishes the rate.

State or federal, which applies to me?

Whichever is higher. And if your city sets a higher rate again, that one applies.

How is overtime handled?

At 1.5 times the rate for hours above the threshold you set. Federal law requires it beyond 40 hours in a week; some states add daily thresholds. Our time and a half calculator covers the rules.

What about tipped work?

Not modelled here. Most states allow a lower cash wage if tips make up the difference, and a few, including California, do not permit that at all.

References

A note on sourcing and dates. Federal and state minimum wage rates are published by the Wage and Hour Division of the US Department of Labor in a consolidated table revised whenever a state rate changes, most recently on 1 January 2026. Because a majority of states now index their rates to inflation and adjust automatically each year, and because many cities and counties set higher rates than their state, any figure should be checked against the Department of Labor table and the relevant state or local labour office before being relied on.

1. U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, State Minimum Wage Laws. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/state
2. U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, State Labor Laws. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state
3. U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, Fact Sheet #23: Overtime Pay Requirements of the FLSA. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/23-flsa-overtime-pay
4. Congressional Research Service, State Minimum Wages: An Overview, Report R43792. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R43792