In November, Florida residents voted to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2026. California will have a $15 minimum wage by 2022 for businesses with 26 or more employees. Connecticut and Massachusetts’s minimum wages will reach $15 by 2023. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 since 2009.
Washington D.C. has the highest minimum wage at $15 an hour.
In 2006, Ohioans voted for a constitutional amendment to bump the state minimum wage up to $6.85 an hour, up from $5.15, and tie future annual increases to the rate of inflation. The 2007 increase was the first minimum wage boost since 1996.
There was a campaign in 2020 to raise the minimum wage to $13 an hour. This effort was derailed by the coronavirus pandemic and it did not make it on the ballot in November.
The 10 cent increase still keeps Ohio in the bottom half of states for minimum wage.
States with 10 lowest minimum wages in 2021, according to the Department of Labor
43. Missouri - $10.30
44. Hawaii - $10.10
45. Minnesota - $10.08
46. Florida - $10 (effective Sept. 2021)
47. Michigan - $9.65
48. Nebraska - $9
49. Ohio - $8.80
50. Nevada - $8.75 (effective July 2021), West Virginia - $8.75
51. 19 states have a $7.25 minimum wage. Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana (no state minimum), Mississippi (no state minimum), New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina (no state minimum), Tennessee (no state minimum), Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, Puerto Rico - $7.25
52. Georgia and Wyoming - $5.15 (Employers subject to the Fair Labor Standards Act must pay the $7.25 Federal minimum wage)
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