Labor laws by state in 2026: what your employer owes you

Federal labor law is a floor that has not moved since July 24, 2009, when the minimum wage reached $7.25. Congress has not changed it since, so most of what changed for workers over the past fifteen years came from state legislatures, ballot measures and city councils. In 2026 only 20 states still leave their workers at the federal rate: Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Elsewhere the state number is higher, and in 15 states a further rate is already set for 2027 or later. The same logic runs through the other rules. Federal law requires no paid sick days, no paid family leave, no meal break and no particular deadline for a last paycheck; states fill each of those gaps in their own way, and some fill none of them.

That is why a page per state is the right unit. A cashier in Spokane and one in Boise do the same job, yet one earns the Washington rate, accrues sick leave from the first hour and is paid overtime on a different salary test, while the other relies on the federal minimum and on her employer's handbook. The index of all 51 jurisdictions sorts them side by side.

Most raises take effect on January 1, but not all. Some states move on July 1 by statute, Florida moves each September 30 under its constitutional amendment, and several index their rate to inflation and publish the new figure in the autumn. A few states have more than one rate: New York splits downstate and upstate, Oregon has a Portland metro rate, a standard rate and a rate for rural counties, and Montana, Ohio and Oklahoma set lower rates for small businesses that federal coverage often overrides. Cities add another layer: Seattle, Denver, Chicago and dozens of California cities set their own figure, which applies to work done inside their limits.

Tipped work follows separate rules. Under federal law an employer may pay $2.13 in cash and count tips toward the rest, as long as the total reaches the minimum. 7 states forbid that tip credit and require the full minimum wage before tips: Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. The tipped minimum wage page checks whether your tips cover the gap.

Every covered, non-exempt employee earns at least 1.5 times the regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek. A workweek is a fixed period of seven days chosen by the employer, and hours cannot be averaged across two weeks. A few states go further with daily overtime or a seventh-day rule, and some public and farm jobs have their own thresholds. Being paid a salary does not by itself remove the right to overtime: an employee must pass a salary test and a duties test to be exempt. The federal salary level is $684 a week, or $35,568 a year, and California, New York, Washington, Colorado and a few other states set a higher one. The salary threshold page lists them.

The Family and Medical Leave Act protects your job for up to 12 workweeks in a 12-month period, or 26 to care for a seriously injured servicemember, but only if your employer has 50 or more employees (or is a public agency or school), you have worked there 12 months, you worked 1,250 hours in the past year, and 50 employees work within 75 miles of your site. The leave is unpaid. Pay comes from somewhere else: your own PTO, an employer plan, or one of the 14 state insurance programs: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington.

Paid sick leave is a separate right. 21 jurisdictions require it, most at one hour for every 30 hours worked, with a yearly cap that depends on the state and sometimes on the size of the employer. The sick leave page computes what a schedule earns.

No federal law says how many hours make a full-time job. The figure that matters most in practice is the one in the Affordable Care Act: an employee averaging 30 hours a week, or 130 hours a month, counts as full time for the employer health coverage rules. Employers set their own definition for benefits, often 32 to 40 hours. Part-time workers keep the minimum wage, overtime past 40 hours and, in most states with a sick leave law, the same accrual as anyone else.

Breaks are also left to the states. Federal law requires none, but it does say that short breaks of a few minutes count as paid work time. 19 jurisdictions require a meal period for adults and 8 require paid rest breaks; the break laws page shows what a given shift is owed.

Employment in every state except Montana is at will: either side can end it at any time without a reason, as long as the reason is not illegal. What changes from one state to the next is what happens to the money. 6 states want the final paycheck the day you are let go, others allow a set number of days, and many simply say the next regular payday. Whether unused vacation is paid out depends on state law and, in most states, on the employer's written policy. Severance is not required by any general law; it comes from a contract or a policy, and the federal WARN Act only requires 60 days of notice before large layoffs by employers with 100 or more employees. 24 states have right-to-work laws, which bar union contracts from requiring fees.

Each state has one data file, and every value in it carries the official page it was read on, a short quote and the date. The pages and calculators read those files, so a corrected figure changes everywhere at once. Federal figures come from the Department of Labor and the Code of Federal Regulations. Before publication, automated tests run every calculator on known cases, and each page is checked for figures typed by hand. The method page lists what the calculators cover and what they leave out, such as union contracts, industry wage orders and public employers.