Michigan’s minimum wage moves from $13.73 to $15.00 an hour on January 1, 2027, a gain of $1.27 and the largest dollar step among the states that have announced new rates. California, Colorado, Minnesota and Ohio have each posted their own January 1 increases, and Washington added a sixth on September 30. All of the rates below come from the states’ own announcements.
Michigan’s step is written into a 2025 law
Michigan’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity lists $13.73 for 2026 and $15.00 for 2027. The page ties the increase to Senate Bill 8, which took effect February 21, 2025 and was written to raise the minimum wage incrementally to $15 by 2027. LEO Deputy Director of Labor Sean Egan hosted a webinar on February 27, 2025 explaining how the new law affects workers and employers.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s state table agrees. It says the Michigan wage “is scheduled to increase on January 1, 2027 to $15.00 per hour and then will be adjusted annually based on a set formula.” Subtracting $13.73 from $15.00 gives $1.27. For a hypothetical full-time worker on 40 hours a week, that is $50.80 more in gross weekly pay, or $2,641.60 over 52 weeks before taxes.
California and Colorado announced on the same August day
California’s Labor Commissioner’s Office announced on August 13, 2026 that the statewide minimum wage rises to $17.40 on January 1, 2027, “helping wages keep pace with inflation.” The Labor Department’s table lists California at $16.90 today, so the step is $0.50. The release also notes that some California cities and counties set local minimums above the state rate, and the state exempt-salary threshold, at twice the minimum wage for a 40-hour week, works out to $72,384 a year.
Colorado’s labor department published its own announcement the same day: $15.71 an hour, up from $15.16, a 3.6 percent increase, with the tipped rate rising to $12.69 from $12.14. Denver’s local rate for 2027 is $19.84. Colorado adjusts its wage by the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as its state constitution requires.
Minnesota and Ohio take smaller steps
Minnesota’s Department of Labor and Industry announced on August 19 that the rate will be adjusted for inflation to $11.87 on January 1, 2027, a 3.99 percent increase. The same page lists a training wage of $9.68 for workers under 20 during a 90-day period, and notes that Minneapolis and St. Paul have separate ordinances with higher rates.
Ohio’s Department of Commerce followed on September 30 with $11.40 an hour for non-tipped workers and $5.70 for tipped workers, up from $11.00 and $5.50, a 3.5 percent rise under a constitutional amendment Ohio voters passed in November 2006. The announcement does not discuss which employers are covered. The Labor Department’s table ties the current Ohio rate to employers with $405,000 or more in annual gross receipts, so the headline rate does not reach every Ohio job.
Washington posted its rate on September 30
Washington’s Department of Labor and Industries announced $17.73 an hour for 2027, up from $17.13, a 3.5 percent increase based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. That is a $0.60 step, larger than California’s $0.50 and Colorado’s $0.55 but well under Michigan’s $1.27. The same announcement sets a youth rate of $15.07 for ages 14 and 15 and moves the large-employer overtime-exempt salary line to $1,773 a week.
Washington’s inclusion is why the count here is “at least five.” Other states may have rates in the works, and the sources read for this article do not establish a national total.
Put side by side, the differences in what the steps add to a full-time week are easy to see. Applying the same 40-hour week to each dollar gain computed above, Michigan’s $1.27 adds $50.80 in gross weekly pay, Washington’s $0.60 adds $24.00, Colorado’s $0.55 adds $22.00, California’s $0.50 adds $20.00 and Ohio’s $0.40 adds $16.00. Minnesota’s dollar step is left out because its announcement gives the 3.99 percent figure but does not print the prior hourly rate. These are illustrations of the arithmetic, not statements about any employer’s payroll, and tipped and training rates follow their own schedules. Every rate cited is the hourly figure each state agency published on its own page, and each takes effect on January 1, 2027.
The federal floor in the Labor Department’s table stays at $7.25
None of these announcements changes the federal minimum wage. The Labor Department’s state minimum wage table, updated July 1, 2026, lists $7.25 an hour as the federal rate, and it lists Michigan, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Ohio and Washington above it. The January 1 rates are state decisions, and where a city or county sets a higher local wage, as Denver, Minneapolis and St. Paul do, the higher figure governs for the worker employed there.
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An AI assistant helped draft this article, which was checked against the state and Department of Labor pages it cites.
