Virginia has the lowest rate of low-wage workers in the South

Just 21.6% of Virginia workers earn less than $17 an hour, per new data from Oxfam , a global income equality advocacy nonprofit.

Why it matters: Virginia has a lower rate than then the national average — and the lowest rate in the South — of workers earning less than $17 an hour.

• Plus, the state has significantly fewer low-wage workers than it did just two years ago.

State of play: Oxfam revised its definition of a low-wage worker this year, from those earning less than $15 an hour to those earning less than $17, Axios' Emily Peck reports .

• Today, 23.2% of U.S. workers falls into the low-wage worker category, per Oxfam. In 2022, 31.9% of workers earned less than $15 an hour.
• In Virginia, 32.8% of workers who made less than $15 an hour in 2022 .

The big picture: Wages are higher now in part because of inflation, and a strong labor market where lower-wage employees are still in high demand. But it's also due to the work of advocates who pushed for minimum wage increases for more than a decade.

• Plus: Pandemic-era benefits helped these workers be more choosy about finding better-paying jobs coming out of the record unemployment of 2020.
• And Virginia's minimum wage has gradually gone up since 2020 ; it's $12 an hour today versus $7.25 four years ago.

Yes, but: Wage disparities persist for women and people of color.

• 30%-31% of Black and Latino workers in Virginia make less than $17 an hour compared to 19% of white Virginia workers.
• And 26% of women make under $17 an hour versus 17% of men.

Worth noting: 863,589 of low-wage Virginia workers are adults 20 and older compared to 126,164 teens.