Louisiana Minimum Wage

Most Louisiana employers were affected on July 24, 2009 when the federal minimum wage increased from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour.

There is no Louisiana minimum wage. Louisiana is one of 5 US states that have no minimum wage. The others are Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee. In these states, an employer who is not covered by the federal minimum wage law can legally pay just $1.00 per hour – if they can find an employee willing to work for that amount.

The federal minimum wage law is the FLSA or Fair Labor Standards Act, passed in 1938. The FLSA applies to businesses with annual revenue of $500,000 or more. It also applies to individual employees who are engaged in interstate commerce as a portion of their work duties. Examples of interstate commerce would be a retail clerk who accepts credit cards as payment, a secretary who uses the internet or email, or a switchboard operator who answers out-of-state phone calls.

Every Louisiana employer should take this opportunity to update their state and federal labor law posters, including the federal minimum wage posters. By law, employers in Louisiana must prominently display current labor law posters.

Most states in the US have a minimum wage at the state level. Currently, the highest minimum wage is $8.55 per hour in Washington state. The Oregon minimum wage is $8.40 per hour while the minimum wage in Vermont is $8.06 per hour. In California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Illinois the minimum wage is $8.00 per hour.

The 2009 federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour is the same as the minimum wage in Arizona, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, Kentucky and West Virginia.

A number of states have 2009 minimum wage increases in addition to the federal minimum wage.  On July 1, 2009 the Illinois minimum wage increased from $7.75 to $8.00 per hour. On that date, the Kentucky minimum wage increased from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour and the Nevada minimum wage increased from $6.85 to $7.55 per hour. On October 1, 2009 the Maine minimum wage will increase from $7.25 per hour to $7.50 per hour. A number of states including Washington, Oregon and Florida had cost-of-living increases to the state minimum wage on January 1, 2009.

The FLSA introduced a number of sweeping changes to the workplace. It established child labor laws that made it illegal for children under the age of 14 to work in almost all occupations. The FLSA set limits on the employment of youths under 18 in “hazardous” occupations. While many of today’s teens chafe under these restrictions, it is important to understand their history. Prior to 1938, children as young as 7 often worked 60 hours per week alongside adults in factories, mills and farms. Some of the children operated dangerous machinery in cotton mills or similar workplaces. 

The 70 cent increase in the federal minimum wage is the final one under the Fair Minimum Wage Act. That law, passed in early 2007, provided for 3 increases in the federal minimum wage. Each increase was 70 cents, and they occurred on July 24 in 2007, 2008 and 2009.