With roughly 4.5% of its workers earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 or less in 2016 and 2017, Louisiana has one of the largest shares of minimum wage workers among all U.S. states, Governing reports, citing new estimates from the Labor Department.
An average of 4.6% of Kentucky workers earned minimum wage or less over the past two years, the most of any other state. Louisiana is tied with Mississippi behind Kentucky, and the Labor Department estimates also suggest low-wage earners made up more than 4% of hourly employees in South Carolina and Tennessee. California has the lowest share of minimum wage earners, at just 0.75% over the past two years.
Just over 1.8 million hourly U.S. workers—or 2.3%—made the federal minimum or less last year. And Governing reports their purchasing power has declined significantly in recent years, with inflation up 16% since the last minimum wage increase was implemented two months after the start of former President Barack Obama’s first term in office.
While high compared to other states, the share of minimum wage workers in Louisiana is on the decline, Governing notes. In 2010, about 8.9% of the state’s hourly workers earned minimum wage or less. That pool shrunk to 5.3% in 2013, before rising again to 6.3% in 2014 and to 6.4% in 2015.
In 2016, roughly 5.3% of Louisiana workers earned minimum wage or less, and last year that figure fell to 3.6%.
Gov. John Bel Edwards has made increasing Louisiana’s minimum wage a policy priority but has faced staunch opposition from Republican lawmakers and the business community.
