Do you know which U.S. states have the highest minimum wage?

Minimum wage in the United States is a tricky topic. Everybody has an opinion on what businesses should pay their employees but some states mandate more for their citizens than others. Do you know which states have the highest minimum wage?

The federal government only mandates that the minimum wage for covered nonexempt employees has to be $7.25 per hour according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That isn’t a lot of money and many states have stuck to the federal mandate. 

States like Illinois, Kansas, and Oklahoma have the federally mandated minimum wage in effect but there are others that have gone well above the government’s mandate and offer more than double the going $7.25 hourly rate. But which are they?

At least twenty-two states upped their minimum wage rates in 2024 and Bloomberg Law put together a table of the hourly minimum wage rate in each of the states. It’s from this data that we can categorize which states offer the best minimum wages. Let's look at which states top the list.

Minimum wage: $14.15

Minimum wage: $14.20

Minimum wage: $14.35

Minimum wage: $14.42

Minimum wage: $15.00

Minimum wage: $15.00

Minimum wage: $15.00

Minimum wage: $15.13

Minimum wage: $15.69

Minimum wage: $16.00

Minimum wage: $16.28

Minimum wage: $17.00

Hawaii had the largest minimum wage increase with a $2 dollar bump to $14 dollars in 2024, and the state has planned to raise the minimum wage even further to $16 dollars an hour in 2026 and $18 dollars in 2028 according to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald.

California may technically have the highest minimum wage than any other state, at least when it comes to food workers. A new law increased the pay per hour for the state's fast food workers from $4 dollars to $20 dollars as of April 1st, 2024 according to CNN.