- After adjusting for inflation and price differences, statutory minimum wages in leading high-income economies—including Germany, Australia, and France—are higher than all 50 U.S. states.
- Under the same metrics D.C., Connecticut, Washington, and Arizona have the highest statutory minimum wages in the U.S.
- U.S. states following the federal minimum wage (which hasn’t moved since 2008), cluster at the bottom end of this ranking, closer to upper-middle-income economies like Colombia and Peru.
- And despite them following the same minimum ($7.25/hr), their real values diverge after adjusting for cost of living.
- Finally, these figures are gross (pre-tax, pre-tips) statutory figures. European taxes tend to be higher than the U.S. states, and tipping culture is mostly absent, which may affect actual take-home income.
Any income or salary comparison is always rife with concerns around prices (how affordable things are) and inflation (how that affordability changes over time).
But when we adjust wages for both, what broad themes and insights can be seen?
The visualization compares 2024 statutory minimum wages in 50 U.S. states and 35 OECD and emerging-market countries. Figures are converted and expressed in 2021 U.S. dollars per hour using purchasing-power parity (PPP) to level out cost-of-living differences.
The data for this visualization comes from a blend of publicly available sources:
- Cross-country PPP figures from the OECD.
- State minimum wage rates from Labor Law Center.
- Regional price parities from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
- U.S. dollar amounts are shown in constant-2021 terms using the BLS Consumer Price Index.
After adjusting for inflation and price differences, Germany had the highest statutory minimum wage in 2024 at $17.15/hour.
Notably, eleven OECD countries (eight of them European) have higher statutory minimum wages than all 50 U.S. states.
Washington, D.C. had the highest nominal wage ($17.50/hr), as well as the highest real (PPP-adjusted) minimum wage in 2024, at $12.43/hr.
Connecticut ($12.10), Washington State ($11.87), and Arizona ($11.78) follow in real wages, ranking higher than their nominal values due to inflation and living costs adjustments.
The Disparity in U.S. Minimum Wages
In PPP-adjusted dollars, 26 states still sit below $10, and 18—including Texas and Pennsylvania—drop under $6.50.
After 15 years without a federal increase, inflation has steadily eroded those floors, leaving roughly 842,000 hourly workers—about 1% of the hourly-paid workforce—earning at or below the federal minimum in 2024.
Dataset Methodology Note
OECD 2024 minimum wage data was available at source in PPP-adjusted 2021 USD. See the source for their methodology.
To put these wages on an equal footing with U.S. states, nominal statutory minimum wages for 2024 were deflated to 2021 USD (using CPI-U from BLS), and then adjusted for local price differences using the BEA’s Implicit Regional Price Deflator (IRPD).
As a result, both datasets are broadly comparable, but differences in underlying assumptions and price baskets mean they’re best used for rough purposes rather than high-precision analysis.
This is because PPPs are meant for international comparison of living standards and price levels. Meanwhile, CPI-U/IRPD focuses on consistency over time within the U.S., and IRPD reflects U.S. regional consumption differences.
Finally, these figures are gross (pre-tax, pre-tips) statutory figures. European taxes tend to be higher than the U.S. states, and tipping culture is mostly absent, which may affect actual take-home income.
Credit: Visual Capitalist
