Massachusetts minimum wage rises to $15 per hour, in final increase of 5-year deal

The minimum wage in Massachusetts will increase to $15 an hour on Jan. 1, up from $14.25 last year. The new minimum for tipped workers will rise by 60 cents to $6.75 an hour.

It's the last in a series of annual wage hikes scheduled for the state.

Lawmakers struck a deal five years ago to gradually increase the minimum wage to $15. But some advocates say the latest $0.75 raise is not enough.

"That's a 5% increase over the 2022 minimum, and inflation's been running higher than that," said Phineas Baxandall, with the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center. "The minimum wage doesn't fully make up for the loss of buying power that happened from inflation."

An analysis by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that a single earner in Massachusetts with no dependents would need to make about $21.88 an hour to pay the bills, after factoring in vital expenses like housing and transportation.

Still, the state's minimum wage is now among the highest in the United States, along with places like Washington, California and Washington, D.C.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, which applies in more than a dozen states, including New Hampshire.