New Jersey Minimum Wage 2027

Which New Jersey rate applies to you

New Jersey does not have one minimum wage but several, depending on the employer and the job. The Department of Labor and Workforce Development publishes all of them on one chart each fall:

The training and student amounts are 90% and 85% of the general rate, rounded up to the next cent; the state publishes only the percentages.

How the $16.48 was set

Since 2025 New Jersey's general rate has simply followed prices. Each year the department takes the change in the CPI-W, the consumer price index for urban wage earners, from August to August, and publishes the new rate around September 30. Prices rose enough over the year to August 2026 to add $0.56 (3.5%), announced on September 29, 2026. Before that, the law pushed the rate up by at least a dollar a year until it passed $15 in 2024.

The farm rate for 2021 is $10.44 as announced in the department's September 2020 release; its newest charts print $10.30 for that year.

Small businesses catch up by 2028, farms by 2030

A “small employer” under the Wage and Hour Law had fewer than six employees on every working day in most weeks of the current year and in at least 48 weeks of the year before. A “seasonal employer” operates only for up to ten weeks between June and September, or took in two thirds of last year's receipts within 16 weeks, or paid 75% of last year's wages in a single quarter. Their workers get $16.25 in 2027. In 2027 and 2028 this rate rises by the regular increase plus a catch-up amount, so that by 2028 it equals the general rate. Tipped workers of these businesses fall under the general rate and the tip rules instead.

Farm workers paid hourly or by the piece reached $15.00 with two 80-cent steps in 2026 and 2027. From 2028 to 2030 their rate also gets the regular increase plus a catch-up, and by 2030 it matches the general rate. Piece-rate farm work must still come to at least the hourly rate for the hours worked.

Licensed or certified health care staff who give direct care to residents of a long-term care facility are owed $3 more than the general rate, which makes $19.48 from January 1, 2027.

Tipped workers: a fixed $9.87 tip credit

New Jersey caps the amount of tips an employer may count toward the minimum wage at a fixed dollar figure written into the law: $7.87 from 2020 to 2022, $8.87 in 2023, and $9.87 since 2024. Because the credit no longer moves, every raise in the minimum wage now goes straight into the cash wage: $6.05 in 2026 and $6.61 from January 2027. If cash wage and tips together fall short of $16.48 an hour, the employer has to make up the gap.

Minors, trainees and students

The statute's rates do not cover workers under 18, but the state's wage orders put most teenage jobs back under them: minors in stores, restaurants, hotels and motels, beauty salons and laundries must be paid the full minimum wage. There is no lower youth rate in those jobs.

A new hire with no related experience who is enrolled in a training program leading to an industry-valued credential may be paid 90% of the minimum for the first 120 hours, at least $14.84 in 2027. Full-time students working for the college they attend may be paid 85%. Summer camps, conferences and retreats run by a nonprofit or religious group are exempt from the minimum wage from June through September.

Overtime and salaried jobs

Hours over 40 in a week are paid at one and a half times the regular rate, $24.72 at the 2027 minimum; farm and hotel workers are among the groups left out of the state overtime rule. New Jersey has no salary threshold of its own for exempt managers and professionals. Its rules adopt the federal ones, so the federal minimum salary of $684.00 a week applies.

$16.48 an hour in take-home pay

Besides state income tax, New Jersey workers pay small payroll deductions for unemployment, disability and family leave insurance. Full-time at the 2027 rate is $34,278 a year, about $28,921 after all taxes for a single filer. For a given pay period, the New Jersey paycheck calculator has the details.

Six years to claim unpaid wages

Complaints about minimum wage or overtime go to the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Division of Wage and Hour Compliance, online or by mail. Claims can reach back six years, and the same limit applies to a lawsuit.

How this is calculated

The calculator applies the general rate for most employees: $15.92 through December 31, 2026 and $16.48 from January 1, 2027. If you work for a small or seasonal employer, on a farm, or in long-term care, take your rate from the first table. Pay is the hourly rate times your weekly hours, 52 weeks a year, and a month is a twelfth of that.

Take-home pay subtracts 2026 federal income tax for a single filer, Social Security, Medicare, New Jersey income tax and the employee shares of unemployment, disability and family leave insurance.