More than 20 states rang in the New Year by raising the minimum wage. The highest minimum wages are in the $16 to $17 range.

“And, according to our analysis, that is going to increase wages for almost 10 million workers,” said Sebastian Martinez Hickey, who tracks the minimum wage at the Economic Policy Institute.

He says more than half the workers getting a minimum wage hike are women. About 11% are Black, and more than a third are Hispanic.

Forty-three-year-old July Monroy makes $17 an hour — just above the minimum wage in Los Angeles —where she’s a manager at McDonald’s.

“My check is only like $800, $900 every two weeks,” she said.

That barely covers Monroy’s rent and other bills. So she cleans houses to make extra money. Monroy is a single mom with five kids who are all young adults. Her youngest son is 18 and still lives with her. 

And two other sons in Texas also struggle to make ends meet making the minimum wage there, which is ”$7 or like $7.25, probably,” Monroy said.

She’s right — $7.25 an hour is the federal minimum wage and Texas is one of 20 states at that rate. Monroy said her sons are also in community college. And if she has any money left at the end of the month, it goes straight to them.

“They’re living in Texas, doesn’t matter if they do like, 38, 40 hours they don’t making more than like $500 for every two weeks,” she said.

So her two sons in Texas are getting by on about $1,000 a month each.

“Yeah those are the stories that just make your hair raise,” said Amy Glasmeier, a professor of economic geography at MIT.

Glasmeier helped develop the Living Wage Calculator, which estimates what workers across the country would need to earn to cover the cost of living. They load prices for things like child care, housing, transportation and food into the calculator. And it spits out the living wage for a particular state or city.

“The minimum wage, in almost every location in the United States does not cover a living wage,” Glasmeier said.

She said even the highest minimum wage, $17 an hour, doesn’t cut it. A livable wage, nationwide, would be closer to $25 an hour, according to her research.