These states are raising their minimum wages in 2023. Chart shows where workers can expect higher pay

As the calendar turns to 2023, workers in more than half of all states have something they hope to see this year: a higher minimum wage.

This is happening because the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour – the same rate since 2009.

But many states and cities have set their own rates, and most of them are set to increase in the new year.

A total of 26 states have announced that higher minimum wages will be introduced during 2023, with another state likely to see an adjustment in July. Research From the payroll experts at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory US

Meanwhile, according to 23 states and Washington, D.C. Economic Policy InstituteThe higher minimum wage will come into force on January 1. The increase, which will range from 23 cents to $1.50 an hour, will affect 8 million workers.

According to Wolters Kluwer, the state most willing to provide the highest minimum wage rate is Washington, at $15.74 an hour.

Workers under the age of 16 in that state will be paid $13.38 an hour through 2023, or 85% of the adult minimum wage.

The minimum wage in Washington, DC will be $16.10 an hour.

Washington, D.C., and 13 states link their minimum wage to the consumer price index, a government measure of the average change consumers pay for certain goods and services.

“There are a few states across the country that will see a sizable jump in the minimum wage because of higher rates of inflation last year,” said Deirdre Kennedy, senior payroll analyst at Wolters Kluwer.

Other states passed through legislation would phase in the increase. States that aren’t seeing a minimum wage increase in 2023 still tie their base wage to the federal rate of $7.25 an hour.

President Joe Biden have promoted To raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. He signed an executive order in 2022 Raising it to that level for federal employees and contractors.

But $15 an hour would have to make sweeping changes at the national level through Congress. Efforts to raise the rate at the national level failed to include it in the covid-19 relief law In 2021.

“As the gap between that and the federal minimum wage widens, it will be interesting to see whether it can provide more momentum for more states to raise their wages or to try and get more momentum at the federal level.” ,” said Kevin Werner, research associate at the Center for Income and Profit Policy at the Urban Institute.

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Raising the national minimum wage to $15 an hour would affect 56 million workers, according to an Urban Institute Report released in September,

The research modeled possible outcomes where a new $15 minimum wage resulted in either no job losses and two different scenarios where expanded job losses occurred.

“Even in our highest job loss scenario, we still found that on average, the average worker was better off and poverty declined,” Werner said.

“Even though some of the individual people who lost their jobs may have been worse off, the net effect was still positive,” he said.

According to Werner, most of the workers who would be affected by the $15 minimum wage are over the age of 25. Nearly a third are the sole breadwinners for their families.

Workers who depend on the minimum wage are also more likely to be people of color and to live in poverty. As a result, raising the minimum wage nationally would help vulnerable people, Werner said.

Holly Sklar, CEO of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, said raising the minimum wage could help increase consumer demand and put money back into local economies.

“Necessary increase in the pocket of minimum wage workers [is] really the most efficient way you can boost the economy,” Sklar said. “Those are the people who have to go back and spend it.”

With federal action to increase the minimum wage uncertain, some big-name companies have already made moves to raise their pay rates.

costco has raised its minimum wage for US store workers $16 per hourwhile Target, Amazon And walmart All have moved to paying hourly workers $15 an hour.

As the economy continues to open up after the Covid shutdown, competition for workers has prompted employers to offer higher wages and starting bonuses for workers at the lower end of the income spectrum, Werner said.

“It’s giving more benefits to low-income workers than ever before,” he said.