South Carolina minimum wage 2026

South Carolina has no minimum wage law of its own, so most jobs there pay at least the federal $7.25 an hour. Next door, the minimum wage is the same in Georgia and North Carolina; the North Carolina minimum wage page has its history.

No increase is scheduled, so it stays at $7.25 an hour in 2027.

Full time, a South Carolina minimum wage job pays $15,080 a year before tax. $7.25 an hour after taxes in every state has its own page. The closest salary with its own page is $20,000 a year.

After taxes, full-time minimum wage work in South Carolina takes home $13,925 a year. Each paycheck every two weeks comes to $535.63. It takes 149.4 hours of work to take home $1,000. See the South Carolina income tax rate for the state's share. See your exact paycheck in the South Carolina paycheck calculator.

It is below the middle: $20 an hour is more than 40% of South Carolina workers earn, but less than half of them. The South Carolina median wage is $22.35 an hour.

Wage statistics cover employees in all jobs, full and part time, not the self-employed.

Tipped workers in South Carolina can be paid $2.13 an hour if tips bring them to at least $7.25.

The employer must make up the difference in any week tips fall short.

South Carolina is tied for last with 19 other states at $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum; the highest is Washington, DC at $18.40 an hour. The Oklahoma minimum wage is the same $7.25, and so are Wisconsin's and Alabama's. The minimum wage by state for 2026 page lists all of them.

2% of hourly workers in South Carolina earned the federal minimum of $7.25 or less in 2024.

Workers paid less than the minimum are mostly tipped or exempt from the law.