West Virginia’s Shameful Minimum Wage Problem

Americans uniformly believe workers deserve a basic standard of living free from employer exploitation. All states and the federal government have minimum wage laws. But minimum wage laws do more than prevent exploitation. They also stimulate the economy, reduce poverty and inequality, and contribute to solving social and health problems.  Many of our neighboring states, whose economies are booming, have leapfrogged West Virginia’s minimum wage, while ours has remained frozen since 2016.

West Virginia’s minimum wage is $8.75 per hour. Since 2016 Republicans have controlled both chambers of the West Virginia legislature, so there is only one political culprit for our failure to raise the minimum wage.

Assuming that $8.75 was an adequate minimum wage in 2016, it is clearly no longer adequate by any measure. The purchasing power of $8.75 in 2016 has eroded almost 35% since then. To provide the same purchasing power now, the Consumer Price Index calculates West Virginia’s minimum wage would have to be $11.78. 

Two other ways reveal how bad this problem has become. If a West Virginia minimum wage worker works a full schedule of 2080 hours – without unpaid time off – she would earn only $18,200 before taxes. This is above the federal poverty level of $15,560 for a single person with no children. But with one child, the income necessary to escape poverty would rise to $21,150. Our minimum-wage worker with one or more children is consigned to poverty simply because the legislature won’t act. 

The federal poverty level is just that – the stark boundary between poverty and at least some economic security and peace. A better way to evaluate West Virginia’s minimum wage is to compare it to the “living wage,” a concept developed at MIT in 2003. 

The living wage is the wage that a full-time worker requires to cover the costs of her family’s basic needs in the state where they live. It includes the specific local costs for food, childcare, health care, housing, transportation, clothing, personal care items, broadband, and taxes. The Living Wage Calculator estimates the 2025 living wage before taxes for one adult in West Virginia without children is $40,415. With one child, the living wage rises to $68,660.

Using Bureau of Labor Statistics information, we can identify the occupations in which West Virginia workers, on average, are paid at or below the living wage. Inside that average wage is a large number of workers paid at or slightly above the minimum wage who would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage. Here is a table showing selected occupations, the number of workers in them, and their average wage in 2025:

School Bus Drivers	3,330	$31,660
Laundry, Dry Cleaning Workers	860	$29,660
Bakers	800	$31,420
Auto Mechanics	4,450	$42,700
Construction Laborers	7,580	$42,770
General Office Clerks	10,950	$35,680
Receptionists	5,690	$31,710
Customer Service Reps	9,850	$41,180
Retail Salesperson	18,290	$30,220
Childcare Workers	1,500	$25,100
Landscaping, Groundskeeping	3,170	$32,310
Waiters, Waitresses	9,190	$36,650
Restaurant Cooks	6,370	$29,410
Security Guards	6,290	$39,430
Firefighters	1,040	$44,450
Home Health, Personal Care	18,730	$26,730
Emergency Medical Technicians	1,150	$35,430
Legislators	750	$57,110
Chief Executives	1,390	$203,960

Increasing the minimum wage would improve the lives of thousands of West Virginians without requiring a tax increase. It would contribute to solving health and social problems like low-birth-weight babies and domestic violence. It would increase the attractiveness and dignity of working. It would distribute a fair share to workers at the lower end of the economic spectrum.

Increasing the minimum wage in West Virginia is simply good policy. Our legislature should raise the wage in the 2026 session and include a cost of living multiplier to keep pace with inflation so that workers a decade from now are not in the same neglected status as minimum wage workers today.

Neal Barkus