North Carolina Ranks 45th in Minimum Wage Sufficiency

A SmartAsset study ranks North Carolina No. 45 nationally for how far its state minimum wage stretches against local living costs.

Updated on Nov. 4, 2026 in Employment

North Carolina Ranks 45th in Minimum Wage Sufficiency

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Should North Carolina raise its minimum wage above $7.25 per hour?

SmartAsset ranked North Carolina No. 45 in the nation for minimum wage sufficiency, finding that a worker earning the state's $7.25 hourly minimum takes home 32% of the local living wage. Missouri ranked No. 1 in the same study.

Why it matters

The ranking measures how well the state's lowest legal wage covers basic living costs for North Carolina workers. Rising living costs continue to pressure lower-income residents across the state.

The SmartAsset study places North Carolina's $7.25 hourly minimum at a Kaitz index of 31%, yielding $15,080 in full-time annual earnings against an estimated $46,738 living wage. The extraction does not detail the methodology behind the living wage estimate.

The players

SmartAsset

SmartAsset is a personal finance technology company that publishes consumer financial research and rankings.

The details

The study evaluated the purchasing power of state minimum wages across all 50 states. Missouri ranked first, with a worker at its minimum wage taking home 71% of the local living wage, while Washington has the highest nominal state minimum wage at $17.13 per hour.

November 4, 2026: SmartAsset publishes its minimum wage sufficiency study.

Market Landscape

North Carolina's No. 45 placement sits within SmartAsset's state-by-state comparison, which places Missouri first and Washington at the top of nominal minimum wage levels. The gap shows that a high nominal wage does not guarantee strong purchasing power, since Washington's $17.13 rate is not the study's top-ranked outcome.

A worker in North Carolina earning the state minimum wage covers about a third of the local living wage on full-time pay. That gap affects monthly budgets for housing, food, and transportation.

The takeaway

Minimum wage levels alone do not determine whether workers can cover living costs, so the purchasing power measure in this ranking gives a clearer view of local pay conditions than nominal rates.