Annual indexing required under a 2019 law will raise the state’s minimum wage by 36 cents for most workers with the start of the new year. (Photo by New Jersey Monitor)
New Jersey’s minimum wage will rise to $15.49 for most workers at the start of the new year, state labor officials announced Tuesday.
The 36-cent increase is the first annual inflation adjustment to the state’s wage floor following a six-year phase-in that was meant to bring the minimum wage to $15, though high inflation in 2023 spurred an indexing adjustment that brought minimum hourly pay to $15.13 instead.
“Aligning the state minimum wage with any increases in the cost of living is a critical step towards economic fairness and security for all New Jersey workers,” Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo said.
At present, New Jersey has the fourth-highest minimum wage in the nation. Only California, Washington, and Connecticut set a higher wage floor. Twenty states default to the federal minimum wage of $7.25, which was set 2009.
The minimum wage for seasonal businesses and those with five or fewer workers will rise by 80 cents to $14.53, while the wage floor for farm workers will go from $12.81 to $13.40 an hour.
Those increases are part of a phase-in that will bring the wage floor for farm workers or workers at small and seasonal employers to $15 by 2030 and 2028, respectively. Wage floors for such workers will also index annually after their respective phase-ins are complete.
The tipped worker minimum wage will rise by 36 cents to $5.62 per hour, and the maximum tip credit paid to such workers will remain at $9.87. That means tipped workers will earn no less than $15.49 per hour under state law.
The minimum wage for workers in long-term care centers will rise to $18.49 on Jan. 1. A state law enacted in 2020 requires the wage floor for such workers be $3 higher than the state’s base minimum wage.
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