Minimum Wage: 6 Facts About Alabama's Minimum Wage

Alabama is one of five states in the country that does not have a state minimum wage law. As a result, hourly workers are paid at least the federal minimum rate of compensation.

Here are six other facts about Alabama's minimum wage.

1. Workers are still paid overtime in Alabama per federal wage requirements, according to Minimum-Wage.us. The going rate for overtime is one and a half times the rate of hourly pay per hour for anything in excess of 40 hours. Seasonal workers, independent contractors and some farm workers are exempt from the federal overtime law.

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2. With a state minimum wage less than the federal rate of $7.25 per hour, Alabama is required to use the federal rate. When the federal wage goes up, the state minimum wage does as well.

3. Tipped employees are paid less. The minimum wage for these types of positions is $2.13 per hour. A tipped employee is defined as anyone who earns $30 or more each month in tips. Recent talks of raising the minimum wage have excluded raising the wages of tipped employees.

4. You could lose out if you are a vocational student. State and federal law allows for vocational student employees to be paid at a rate of only 75 percent of the minimum wage, according to Minimum-Wage.org. This falls under the Department of Labor's "Student Learner Program."

5. While the state has no set minimum wage, some cities have taken it upon themselves to raise the standard. The city council of Birmingham is one city that has approached the state legislature to raise the wage, citing the current wage is below poverty level, according to Alabama Media Group. In April 2015 the council passed a resolution supporting a minimum wage increase to $10 per hour. That resolution, thus far, has fallen on deaf ears.

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6. The minimum wage in Alabama is a far cry from the actual living wage. Although the cost of living in the state is considered significantly less than the rest of the country, the living wage is still $2.92 more per hour than what minimum-wage workers are taking home, according to the Living Wage Calculator posted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This equates to almost a $6,000 deficit annually for basic survival: food, clothing, and housing allowances.

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