West Virginia minimum wage 2026

The West Virginia minimum wage is $8.75 an hour in 2026, above the $7.25 federal minimum. Next door, the minimum wage is higher in Ohio, Virginia and Maryland and lower in Pennsylvania and Kentucky; the Ohio minimum wage page has its history.

Employers of 6 or more employees at one location.

No increase is scheduled, so it stays at $8.75 an hour in 2027.

Full time, a West Virginia minimum wage job pays $18,200 a year before tax. The closest salary with its own page is $20,000 a year.

After taxes, full-time minimum wage work in West Virginia takes home $16,251 a year. Each paycheck every two weeks comes to $623.37. It takes 128 hours of work to take home $1,000. See the West Virginia income tax rate for the state's share. Run your own hours through the West Virginia hourly paycheck calculator.

It is below the middle: $20 an hour is more than 44% of West Virginia workers earn, but less than half of them. The West Virginia median wage is $21.78 an hour.

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

Tipped workers in West Virginia can be paid $2.62 an hour if tips bring them to at least $8.75.

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

It has stayed at $8.75 an hour since at least 2016.

West Virginia ranks #31 of 51; the highest is Washington, DC at $18.40 an hour. The closest rate is the Texas minimum wage, followed by Georgia's and North Carolina's. The minimum wage by state for 2026 page lists all of them.

1.6% of hourly workers in West Virginia earned the federal minimum of $7.25 or less in 2024.

West Virginia requires more than $7.25, so these are mostly tipped and exempt jobs.