WORK
When was the last time the federal minimum wage was raised in the US? When could it happen again?
The federal minimum wage is certianly not an amount the majority of people could live on, stripped by inflation and hasn’t been adjusted in over a decade.
The introduction of a nation-wide minimum wage in 1938 was a significant moment for workers’ rights in the US. The initial minimum was a paltry $0.25; compared to today’s money, this is the equivalent of $5.23.
It says a lot that the minimum wage in 2023 has increased by less than 40% in real terms. The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 an hour for over 14 years, being introduced in 2009. This is the longest period without an increase since the base salary was created. According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), this wage has the same purchasing power as someone in the 1950s, while the highest minimum wage in history was during the 1960s: the wage was the equivalent of $13 in today’s money.
Five states do not have a state minimum wage and use the federal minimal instead. These are: Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
When could the minimum wage be increased in the future?
The last time the federal minimum wage was included in a bill was in 2021. The American Rescue Plan Act had originally included a provision to increase the lower limit to $15 an hour. Due to problems negotiating its way through the Senate, despite passing the House, the measure was dropped.
In July, a group of Democrat Senators announced planned legislation to raise the minimum wage to $17 by 2028. So far the plan hasn’t gone forward yet and with a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
“The $7.25 an hour federal minimum wage is a starvation wage. It must be raised to a living wage – at least $17 an hour,” said Sanders. “In the year 2023 a job should lift you out of poverty, not keep you in it. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality and record-breaking corporate profits, we can no longer tolerate millions of workers being unable to feed their families because they are working for totally inadequate wages.”
Any increase of the federal minimum wage would mostly affect the states with either no minimum wage or a wage matching the minimum. Research from the EPI shows that workers in one of these twenty states are 46% more likely to earn less than $15 an hour compared to the rest of the country.