The FRED^® Blog

The takeaway

The federal minimum wage is the lowest hourly rate employers are required to pay workers. It’s been $7.25 per hour for a while now. State minimum wages are a different story: Many are higher than the federal minimum, but the benefits can vary depending on cost of living in that location.

Mapping state minimum wages

Washington DC and 30 of the 50 US states have minimum wages higher than the federal minimum. The median minimum wage for US states, including DC, is currently $11.85.

Our FRED map above shows these minimum wages in 2026.

Gray shading indicates a state either follows the federal minimum wage of $7.25 or has chosen to set their minimum wage at the same rate.

Other colors indicate the state minimum wage is higher than the federal minimum, from the lowest in light yellow to the highest in dark green. As of 2026, the highest of these state minimum wages is $18.40 in DC and the lowest is $8.75 in West Virginia.

Adjusting for cost of living

States consider many factors when setting their minimum wage, including cost of living. Our FRED map above shows one such measure: regional price parities (RPPs).

RPPs assign values to the relative price level in each state compared with the national average, which has a value of 100. California is highest, at 110.72, which means prices there are 10.7% higher than the national average. Arkansas is lowest, at 86.94, with prices about 13.1% lower than average.

RPPs are determined by the average prices paid for a typical basket of goods and services, which is applied consistently across states and reflects what the average household would consume, not necessarily what the average minimum wage worker would consume. Note that state-level RPPs are an average for the entire state; but of course, cost of living can vary within a state. For example, Florida’s RPP is 103.41. Within the state, though, RPPs vary from 95.47 in the Tampa area to 103.56 in the Miami area.

Adjusting the minimum wage by RPPs provides a measure of real purchasing power across states. For example: DC has the highest minimum wage, but also a high cost of living. Its minimum wage value drops by about $1.66 to $16.74 once adjusted by its RPP. New Hampshire is one of the states with the lowest minimum wage ($7.25), which drops to $6.96 once adjusted by its RPP.

How these maps were created: First map: Search FRED for and select “State Minimum Wage Rate for Missouri” (series ID STTMINWGMO). Or any state, really. In the upper right, click “View Map” and then the blue “Edit Map” button. Click the light-yellow color (next to the less than or equal to 7.25) and change the color to gray (#999995) so all states with a minimum wage equal to or below $7.25 appear gray. Second map: Search FRED for and select “Regional Price Parities: All Items for Missouri” (series ID MORPPALL) and click “View Map.”

Suggested by Reagan Gilmore and Charles Gascon.

The name

In the 1980s, Texas had a banking crisis whose causes included shocks in oil prices and real estate investments. In response, Gerard Cassidy of the Royal Bank of Canada developed the Texas ratio metric to assess a bank’s credit risk in that state.

The definition

The Texas ratio measures a bank’s nonperforming loans divided by the sum of tangible equity capital and allowance for losses on loans and leases.

Nonperforming loans consist of the following:

1. Nonaccrual loans, where a lender stops adding expected interest to their reported income.
2. Loans with payments 90 or more days past due.
3. Real estate assets acquired through foreclosure.

Tangible equity capital represents the available capital cushion to absorb losses and is found by subtracting intangible assets from total bank equity capital. Allowance for loan losses represents funds set aside to cover expected loan losses.

The interpretation

The lower the ratio (that is, the closer to 0%), the smaller the risk of loan losses to a bank’s capital. The higher the ratio, especially if it exceeds 100%, the greater the risk of a bank being unable to cover its potential loan losses.

The graphed data

Our FRED graph shows the aggregated Texas ratio for all FDIC-insured commercial banks in the U.S. between the first quarter of 1984 and the first quarter of 2026. At the time of this writing, its value is 5.82%. That’s near the all-time low of 4.59% recorded during the second quarter of 2022.

Read more about the Texas ratio, including values by bank size, in Banking Analytics: Understanding Credit Risk with the Texas Ratio.

How this graph was created: Search FRED for and select “Balance Sheet: Loans and Leases in Nonaccrual Status, Millions of U.S. Dollars, Not Seasonally Adjusted.” Click on the “Edit Graph” button and under the “Customize data” section in the “Edit Line” tab, search for “Balance Sheet: Loans and Leases 90 Days or More Past Due, Millions of U.S. Dollars, Not Seasonally Adjusted” and click “Add.” Repeat for “Balance Sheet: Total Assets: Other Real Estate Owned, Millions of U.S. Dollars, Not Seasonally Adjusted,” “Balance Sheet: Total Liabilities and Capital: Total Equity Capital: Total Bank Equity Capital, Millions of U.S. Dollars, Not Seasonally Adjusted,” “Balance Sheet: Total Assets: Intangible Assets, Millions of U.S. Dollars, Not Seasonally Adjusted,” and “Balance Sheet: Total Assets: Total Loans and Leases: Less: Reserve for Losses, Millions of U.S. Dollars, Not Seasonally Adjusted.” Enter the formula 100 * (a+b+c) / (d-e+f).

Suggested by Steven Tian and Diego Mendez-Carbajo.

The takeaway

Small businesses with lower credit risk tend to receive all the financing they seek more often than businesses with higher credit risk, which may be newer, smaller, and more in need of financing.

Small business credit 

Fed Small Business is a collection of resources related to, yes, small business. It provides economic research and analysis by the 12 Reserve Banks of the Federal Reserve System as well as the national Small Business Credit Survey (SBCS).

The SBCS asks firms with fewer than 500 employees how much financing their business sought and obtained in the past year. Our FRED graph above shows the share of firms applying for financing that were approved for the full amount they sought. Survey responses are available from 2016 through 2025.

These firms are sorted into three different categories of credit risk: low (solid blue line), medium (dashed green line), and high (dotted orange line).

As you might expect, firms with low credit risk consistently received the full amount of the financing they were seeking more frequently than firms with riskier credit profiles. As Fed Small Business researchers point out, “riskier firms are more often newer and smaller than those with stronger credit scores. As a result, it may be the case that businesses most in need of financing have the most difficulty accessing those funds.”

Small business details 

The SBCS offers rich details about the industry, firm size, geographical location, and demographic characteristics of the owners. These data help tell some compelling stories. For example:

• Small rural firms were consistently more likely to receive the full amount of financing compared with their urban counterparts.
• Small firms with annual revenues above $1 million were more likely to receive the full amount of financing compared with firms with revenue below that threshold.
• Small veteran-owned firms are generally at par with small non-veteran-owned firms regarding their full access to the financing requested. But short-lived gaps between these two groups occasionally appear.

Learn more about the demographics of small business owners.

How this graph was created: Browse FRED by release and select “Small Business Credit Survey” and its “Approved for New Financing” release table. Scroll to the section labeled “Credit risk” and check the boxes next to the series labeled “Low credit risk,” “Medium credit risk,” and “High credit risk.” Scroll to the bottom of the page and click “Add to Graph.” Repeat for the other demographics discussed.

Suggested by Krishna Meegada and Diego Mendez-Carbajo.