Minimum wages by state - minimum_wage

Data - Fred

Author

François Geerolf

Info

Last observation: 2026-07-01 (N = 2)

First observation: 1938-10-01 (N = 1)

Last data update: 01 aoû 2026, 23:32. Last compile: 17 aoû 2026, 22:29

variable

Code 
minimum_wage |>
  left_join(variable,  by = "variable") |>
  group_by(variable, Variable) |>
  arrange(date) |>
  summarise(Nobs = n(),
            first = first(date),
            last = last(date)) |>
  arrange(-Nobs) %>%
  {if (is_html_output()) datatable(., filter = 'top', rownames = F) else .}

State vs Federal Minimum Wages

Map

Code 
ig_b("bls", "minimum-wage-state")

Orders of magnitude

  • Federal Monthly, 2021 = $1,256.7 per month (173 hours per month ?)

  • Hours per month: (40 hours per week X 52 weeks per year) / 12 months per year = 173.33 hours per month

  • Federal minimum wage = $7.25 per hour

  • State minimum wage (California) = $14 per hour 14*173.33= $2426

California - STTMINWGCA

Index

Code 
minimum_wage |>
  filter(variable == "STTMINWGCA") |>
  ggplot() + geom_line(aes(x = date, y = value)) + 
  ylab("Minimum wages") + xlab("") + theme_minimal() +
  scale_y_continuous(breaks = seq(0, 30, 2),
                     labels = dollar_format()) + 
  scale_x_date(breaks = as.Date(paste0(seq(1940, 2100, 5), "-01-01")),
               labels = date_format("%Y"))

Log

Code 
minimum_wage |>
  filter(variable == "STTMINWGCA") |>
  ggplot() + geom_line(aes(x = date, y = value)) + 
  ylab("Minimum wages") + xlab("") + theme_minimal() +
  scale_y_log10(breaks = seq(0, 30, 2),
                     labels = dollar_format(acc = 1)) + 
  scale_x_date(breaks = as.Date(paste0(seq(1940, 2100, 5), "-01-01")),
               labels = date_format("%Y"))

Wage Inflation

Code 
minimum_wage |>
  filter(variable == "STTMINWGCA") |>
  mutate(year = year(date),
         month = month(date)) |>
  filter(month == 1) |>
  mutate(value_log = log(value),
         wage_inflation = value_log - lag(value_log)) |>
  ggplot() + ylab("Wage Inflation") + xlab("") +
  geom_line(aes(x = date, y = wage_inflation)) +
  scale_y_continuous(breaks = seq(-0.2, 0.4, 0.05),
                     labels = percent_format(acc = 1)) + 
  scale_x_date(breaks = as.Date(paste0(seq(1940, 2100, 5), "-01-01")),
               labels = date_format("%Y")) + 
  theme_minimal()