This July marks 15 years since the federal minimum wage was last increased. Today the minimum wage is worth 29 percent less than when it was last increase in July 2009. By any reasonable standard, the federal wage floor is far too low and contributes to income, gender, and racial inequality.
States with the highest shares of low-wage workers are Mississippi, Louisiana and Oklahoma. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. The Raise the Wage Act would have increased the minimum wage to $17 by 2028. The Act would also have eliminated the $2.13 minimum wage for tipped workers.
In 1950 President Truman nearly doubled the federal minimum wage from an inflation-adjusted $4.30 to $8.06. There are many ways to get the country on a sustained path of living wages, but a lack of imagination seems to prevail. It is shameful that the US, the wealthiest country in the world, ranks #19 on minimum wages across the world.
