Minimum wage increases but doesn’t take affect until May 2021

Here’s everything you want to know about the new minimum wage law than went into effect on July 1, 2020.

The new law increases the minimum wage from its current federally mandated level of $7.25 per hour to $9.50 per hour effective May 1, 2021; to $11.00 per hour effective January 1, 2022; to $12.00 per hour effective January 1, 2023; to $13.50 per hour effective January 1, 2025; and to $15.00 per hour effective January 1, 2026.

For January 1, 2027, and thereafter, the annual minimum wage shall be adjusted to reflect increases in the consumer price index. The measure provides that the increases scheduled for 2025 and 2026 will not become effective unless reenacted by the General Assembly prior to July 1, 2024. If such provisions are not reenacted prior to July 1, 2024, then the annual minimum wage will be adjusted to reflect increases in the consumer price index beginning January 1, 2025.

The measure creates a training wage at 75 percent of the minimum wage for employees in on-the-job training programs lasting less than 90 days. The measure also provides that the Virginia minimum wage applies to persons whose employment is covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act; persons employed in domestic service or in or about a private home; persons who normally work and are paid on the amount of work done; persons with intellectual or physical disabilities except those whose employment is covered by a special certificate issued by the U.S. Secretary of Labor; persons employed by an employer who does not employ four or more persons at any one time; and persons who are less than 18 years of age and who are under the jurisdiction of a juvenile and domestic relations district court.

Minimum wage does not apply to the following:

• Any person employed as a farm laborer or farm employee;
• Any person engaged in the activities of an educational, charitable, religious, or nonprofit organization where the relationship of employer-employee does not, in fact, exist, or where the services rendered to such organization are on a voluntary basis;
• Caddies on golf courses;
• Traveling salesmen or outside salesmen working on a commission basis; taxicab drivers and operators;
• Any person under the age of 18 in the employ of his parent or legal guardian;
• Any person confined in any penal or corrective institution of the Commonwealth or any of its political subdivisions or admitted to a state hospital or training center operated by the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services;
• Any person employed by a summer camp for boys, girls, or both boys and girls;
• Any person under the age of 16, regardless of by whom employed;
• Any person who is paid pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 214(c) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended;
• Students participating in a bona fide educational program;
• Any person who is less than 18 years of age and who is currently enrolled on a full-time basis in any secondary school, an institution of higher education, or trade school, provided that the person is not employed more than 20 hours per week;
• Any person of any age who is currently enrolled on a full-time basis in any secondary school, an institution of higher education, or trade school and is in a work-study program or its equivalent at the institution at which enrolled as a student;
• Any person who works as a babysitter for fewer than 10 hours per week;
• Any person participating as an au pair in the U.S. Department of State’s Exchange Visitor Program governed by 22 C.F.R. § 62.31;
• Any individual employed as a temporary foreign worker as governed by 20 C.F.R. Part 655; and
• Any person who is exempt from the federal minimum wage pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 213(a)(3).