What is in this file
One row per state, plus DC and Puerto Rico where available. The rank universe is 50 states; reference rows have an empty rank. The file is sorted by descending value with reference jurisdictions after the states.
- Period
- October 23, 2026
- Release
- 2026-07-01
- Updated
- 2026-10-23
- Producer
- U.S. Department of Labor; state labor departments
- Source
- State minimum wage laws · State minimum wage laws, compiled October 23, 2026
- Units
- U.S. dollars per hour
- Cadence
- Changes by law; most increases take effect on January 1
Quick validation snapshot
Washington has the highest estimate ($17.13/hr); 20 states share the lowest ($7.25/hr). The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, unchanged since July 24, 2009. These are useful checks when importing the CSV into a spreadsheet. Reference jurisdictions may lie outside the 50-state range, so exclude rows marked reference when reproducing the default state ranks.
These are legal rates, not estimates, so no margin of error applies. Every state whose rate changed in 2026 was checked against its own labor department; where DOL’s table lagged behind state law (Florida), the state source is used.
Calculation and reproducibility
Higher of the state basic minimum rate and the federal $7.25, in effect on October 23, 2026. Each state rate is checked against the archived DOL table during ingestion; differences are allowed only where a state source supersedes DOL.
Immutable edition 2026-10-23 CSV · Full edition registry, including available histories
Column definitions
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| rank | 1 + the number of states with a higher source value; empty for reference rows. |
| jurisdiction | State name or labeled reference jurisdiction. |
| value | Numeric estimate, using the source’s available precision. |
| unit | U.S. dollars per hour |
| moe_90 | Published 90% margin of error in the same units; empty when not published. |
| reference | True if excluded from the default 50-state ranking. |
| period | Reference period of the observation. |
| release | Date of the source release. |
| source | Producer and table/file identifier. |
| source_url | Producer file or source documentation; microdata rows link to the specific state input ZIP. |
Limits and reuse
Cities and counties may set higher rates, and some states set lower rates for small employers, young workers or tipped workers. The notes in the table give the main exceptions.
This is an independent arrangement of federal statistical data. Cite the named producer for the original observations and Rank the States for computed ranks. Downloading or embedding does not imply government endorsement. Source files are archived with a checksum for reproducibility.
SHA-256 of the concatenated SHA-256 strings of our compiled table and the archived DOL page (updated July 1, 2026). SHA-256: e0d301518feb6843053a7b2e7062d737b35203b68660f4f5ecd97084ddc62764
Citation
Rank the States. Minimum wage, October 23, 2026. Source: U.S. Department of Labor; state labor departments, State minimum wage laws, State minimum wage laws, compiled October 23, 2026; released 2026-07-01. Edition 2026-10-23. https://rankthestates.com/data/editions/2026-10-23/minimum-wage.csv