WASHINGTON — Look around the country, and you’ll find the same impassioned argument about pay for low-wage workers is taking place. The $15 minimum wage was approved last year in Seattle, and is being proposed in New York City. Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is pushing for a federal $15 floor. Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate leading the latest polls, said he would prefer it remain as is, at $7.25 an hour.
But raising the minimum wage carries a different significance depending on where you live. A dollar goes a lot further in the South than it does in New England.
The Pew Research Center used regional price parities, supplied by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, to estimate how fluctuations in purchasing power affect the real implications of a $15 minimum wage around the country. Many of the findings are fairly obvious: In New York City, where things are 22.3 percent more expensive than the national average, the hike wouldn’t mean quite as much as it would in Macon, Ga., where prices are 12.2 percent below average. But the overarching takeaway is still an important one.
The map above shows the real purchasing power of $15 in every state. In Honolulu, the priciest urban area in the United States, a $15 minimum wage is only worth about $12.24; in rural West Virginia, meanwhile, where prices are lower than anywhere else in the country, $15 is worth closer to $20. The only place where $15 is actually worth $15 is Allentown, Pa., according to Pew.