Is the average hourly wage in U.S. $7.25?

1. A startling conflation: minimum wage versus average pay — why the $7.25 figure keeps circulating

Many statements that present $7.25 as the “average” wage conflate the federal minimum wage with the mean earnings of workers. The federal minimum wage has been fixed at $7.25 per hour since 2009, and that statutory number is often cited in political debate and media summaries because it is easy to recall and rhetorically potent ^{[4] [5]}. However, authoritative labor statistics separate legal floor rates from measures of typical worker pay. The Bureau of Labor Statistics and Federal Reserve series that track average hourly earnings report substantially higher figures because these series aggregate payroll data across all industries, occupations, and regions. Presenting the minimum as the average omits the substantial middle- and higher-wage employment that elevates the mean well above the statutory floor ^{[3] [1]}.

2. What the data actually say: average hourly earnings around $36.50 in 2025

Comprehensive payroll measures show average hourly earnings for private-sector employees at approximately $36.53 in mid‑2025, up from roughly $35.23 a year earlier, reflecting ongoing nominal wage growth ^{[3] [1]}. Industry-level tables show variation—mining, utilities, and some professional sectors exceed $40 per hour, while leisure and hospitality and retail are lower—but even the lowest industry averages in those tables are above $20 per hour, far above $7.25 ^{[6] [7]}. These averages are drawn from large, recurring surveys of employers and payrolls; they capture overtime, base pay, and sectoral shifts, and are the standard reference for “average hourly earnings” in economic reporting ^{[3] [7]}.

3. A small but visible population still earns minimum wage or less

BLS household survey snapshots show a nontrivial, but small, share of workers earning at the federal minimum or below: roughly 82,000 workers reported exactly $7.25 and about 760,000 reported wages below the federal minimum in a 2024 snapshot, representing around 1.0 percent of hourly-paid workers ^[2]. These workers are concentrated in certain sectors and geographic areas, and the estimate excludes forms of compensation like tips, overtime, or commissions that can materially affect total pay. That reality explains why the $7.25 figure remains relevant to advocacy and policy discussions: it signals a legal floor and a lived experience for a subset of low-wage workers even though it is not representative of the national average ^[2].

4. Why averages can mask distributional realities and policy debates

Average hourly earnings are useful for capturing broad labor-market trends, but averages conceal substantial dispersion: median wages, distributional deciles, and sectoral differences tell a different story about how income is experienced. For instance, production and nonsupervisory employees saw slightly different real wage movements than the all-employee series, and real average hourly earnings increased modestly in recent 12-month windows, indicating inflation-adjusted shifts that averages alone can misrepresent ^[8]. Policy debates that center on raising the minimum wage or indexing it to inflation rely on distributional measures and counts of minimum‑wage workers rather than mean earnings, which is why activists highlight the $7.25 floor even as economists point to mean and median series that are much higher ^{[4] [8]}.

5. Multiple viewpoints and potential agendas: why sources emphasize different numbers

Government statistical agencies publish both the legal minimum and average/median earnings series for distinct purposes: the Department of Labor records the statutory floor, while BLS and FRED publish payroll‑based averages used by economists and businesses. Advocates for higher minimum wages emphasize the persistent $7.25 floor to mobilize policy change; employers and fiscal analysts point to rising average earnings and sectoral shortages to argue other priorities. Both perspectives use accurate numbers, but they highlight different measures to advance different arguments. Understanding which metric a speaker references—minimum, median, or mean—is essential to interpreting their claim ^{[5] [1]}.

6. Bottom line: the claim is factually incorrect as stated but not irrelevant

The plain factual verdict: No, the average hourly wage in the U.S. is not $7.25; $7.25 is the federal minimum wage, while average hourly earnings are roughly $36.5 as of 2025. Nonetheless, the persistence of the $7.25 figure matters because it represents a legal baseline and the actual wages of a measurable group of workers; debates over wages should therefore cite the precise statistic they mean—minimum, median, or average—so the public can evaluate policy and lived experience on common ground ^{[3] [2]}.