As of January 1, Virginia’s minimum wage inched up from $12 to $12.41 giving a full-time, minimum wage employee an additional $65.60 a month based on a 40-hour work week.
Virginia’s minimum wage could have increased to $15 an hour this year. During the 2024 session, the General Assembly voted in favor of the higher increase, but the final call was made by Governor Youngkin who vetoed the bill.
The governor said, “The free market for salaries and wages works.” He claimed the increase would be detrimental for small businesses across the state, except perhaps in Northern Virginia.
“A one-size-fits-all mandate ignores the vast economic and geographic differences and undermines the ability to adapt to regional cost-of-living differences and market dynamics,” the governor stated.
But the governor doesn’t have the ability to completely stop one-size-fits-all wage hikes due to the Virginia Minimum Wage Act passed in 2020. That law requires the state to increase the minimum wage based on the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) in every year that a hike doesn’t come through the General Assembly.
According to Youngkin, that’s the preferable approach.
Virginia Dept. of Labor and Industry announced the CPI-U from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the 2025 increase was 3.4%, amounting to 41 cents.
This method will be used to calculate increases every year going forward unless Virginia’s elected officials approve more.
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