Low-Wage Workers as a Percent of the Workforce, by U.S. State
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Today, 30.6 million Americans, representing 21% of the workforce, earn under $17 an hour.
For the past 15 years, the federal minimum wage has remained unchanged, with its real value now at its lowest point in 67 years. While the pandemic fueled wage gains for low-paid workers due to tight labor markets and state-level minimum wage increases, this comes after decades of stagnant wage growth.
The above graphic shows the share of low-wage workers by state, based on data from the Economic Policy Institute.
Which States Have the Most Low-Wage Workers?
Below, we rank states by the share of workers earning under $17 an hour.
The $17 threshold was chosen because of the Raise the Wage Act of 2023, a bill that’s been proposed that would gradually increase the federal hourly minimum wage to $17 by 2028.
StateShare of U.S. Population
2023Number of Workers
Mississippi41%443,000
Louisiana37%647,000
Oklahoma36%608,000
West Virginia35%238,000
Arkansas34%412,000
Alabama31%641,000
North Carolina31%1,428,000
New Mexico31%251,000
Florida30%2,850,000
Kentucky30%518,000
South Carolina29%612,000
Tennessee29%853,000
Texas29%3,824,000
Georgia28%1,302,000
Idaho27%219,000
Missouri27%729,000
Wyoming27%70,000
Iowa26%383,000
Kansas26%354,000
Nevada26%361,000
Hawaii24%140,000
Indiana24%735,000
Michigan24%1,057,000
Montana24%111,000
Ohio24%1,241,000
Arizona23%729,000
Delaware23%101,000
Utah23%366,000
Illinois22%1,197,000
Nebraska22%204,000
Pennsylvania22%1,285,000
South Dakota21%89,000
Virginia21%843,000
Wisconsin21%584,000
Maine19%107,000
New Jersey19%801,000
New Hampshire18%117,000
New York18%1,478,000
Rhode Island18%92,000
North Dakota17%62,000
Maryland16%445,000
California15%2,467,000
Connecticut15%240,000
Oregon15%277,000
Vermont15%45,000
Colorado14%388,000
Minnesota14%381,000
Alaska13%41,000
Massachusetts13%414,000
Washington12%411,000
U.S. Total21%30.6M
The southern state of Mississippi has the highest share of workers earning under $17 an hour, making up 41% of its workforce.
Despite having lowest cost of living in the country, Mississippi has struggled to attract workers, even amid a period of sustained inflation. With no state minimum wage, it defaults to the federal minimum of $7.25 per hour. Additionally, its workforce is the least productive in the country, measured by economic output per job.
Following Mississippi are Louisiana and Oklahoma, with 37% and 36% of the labor pool being low-wage workers, respectively. Since the start of the pandemic, Louisiana has seen some of the slowest average wage growth across America. In real terms, between mid-2019 to mid-2023, it rose just 1.7% in total.
By contrast, Washington has the lowest share, at 12% of the workforce earning under $17 an hour. This is due in part to its high minimum wage, which increased from $15.74 in 2023 to $16.28 this year.
Historic Wage Gains
Notably, between 2019 and 2023, real wages increased by a total of 12.1% across low-wage workers.
These gains marked a historic rise in real wage increases, even as inflation increased by almost 20% during this period. As part of this shift, 29 states raised their minimum wage through indexing, referendum, or legislation. While these wage gains have been markedly slow for decades, the share of low-wage workers has substantially declined from over 30% of the workforce in 2013, adjusted for inflation.
The post Mapped: Low-Wage Workers in the Workforce, by U.S. State appeared first on Visual Capitalist.