Are minors earning minimum wage liable for federal income taxes?
By Ellie Pepperell
Copy link
Copy featured image
YES
Whether someone pays federal income tax is based upon the person's income, regardless of age.
A single person under 65 years of age who earned more than $12,200 in 2019 was required to file an income tax return, but at that level was unlikely to owe any income taxes if eligible for the standard deduction of $12,200. (The standard deduction for 2020 was raised to $12,400.) At the federal rate of $7.25, which applies in 21 states, a minimum wage-earner would have had to work 1,683 hours in the year before crossing the filing threshold. Minimum wages vary considerably across U.S. states and cities, ranging up to $15.59 in San Francisco.
In addition, workers pay social security and Medicare taxes from the first dollar of earnings.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
