As of January 2025, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee have not adopted a state minimum wage. This means that workers in these states earn the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
Currently, just 34 states, territories and districts have minimum wages above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, according to the National Association of State Legislatures.
“Five states have not adopted a state minimum wage: Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee. Three states, Georgia, Oklahoma and Wyoming, have a minimum wage below $7.25 per hour. In all eight of these states, the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour generally applies.” NASL
How is that possible in today’s inflationary economy when the price of everything is too high? Republicans call it States Rights, the mantra that conservative Republicans use to justify the high poverty rate prevailing in these red states, which is the reason a Donald Trump could become the president.
The federal government is so evil (too many gays, immigrants, taxes), say the red staters, that they must oppose as many of its policies as possible (other than social security, Medicare and Medicaid, of course).
It’s also a total con but Republicans have succeeded in convincing the majority of their electorate in those states to listen to them rather than the blue states whose excess (higher) tax monies pay their benefits and help to balance the budgets of the red states.
Kentucky is a prime example, where prosperous blue states such as California and New York have large surplus taxes that flow to poor red states like Kentucky—more than $60 billion annually in their case for pensions and healthcare owed its citizens—to support its citizens and its own budget deficit (due to a low tax rate).
The above PBS map highlights where the poorest (gray colored) states are located, mainly the south and Midwest where right-to-work laws that obstruct union organizing still prevail. These are laws that say one can work for a company that has unionized its workers in these states, but the Supreme Court has ruled they don’t have to pay the union dues that support the benefits being unionized (higher wages and benefits, generally) such membership gives them.
It's difficult to believe such ignorance still prevails with the modern mass media, but culture wars still exist in America with its many ethnic and racial divisions. Such a variety of immigrants has been the reason the United States of America has been the most prosperous country in the world, but also the most divided in these red states.
It’s the overweening bigotry, a relic of the civil war, that has kept red states poor; and a propaganda network of Fox News and conservative talk shows that has kept the likes of autocrats and dictators in power.
High inflation since COVID-19 is a good example of fear and paranoia topping common sense. Most people understand that inflation is caused by a shortage of things; in this case because of the COVID-19 pandemic that caused a brief recession and shut down the world economy.
But fear does funny things to people, and only such a well-oiled, conservative propaganda network could convince red staters that it was because Democrats had given them too much money to spend. Yet it is Biden’s New, New Deal legislation that is modernizing the American economy and keeping them at full employment!
But when has common sense prevailed in politics? We need to bring back the middle class that prevailed after World War Two, but was decimated by so many recessions since then, as politics gradually moved to the right and budget deficits grew.
Common sense could prevail if congress can avoid renewing Trump’s first term tax cut in the budget negotiations, which will increase the federal debt by another $4 trillion, while cutting Medicaid benefits in the red states that need them the most.
But since when has common sense prevailed?
Harlan Green © 2025
Follow Harlan Green on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarlanGreen
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