Has The Federal Minimum Wage Kept Pace With Inflation, Raising The Federal Minimum Wage To 15 By 2024 Would Lift Pay For Nearly 40 Million Workers Economic Policy Institute

However if the minimum wage did rise in step with productivity growth since 1968 it would be over 24 an hour today as shown in the figure.

Legalization of marijuanas canada essay. Vermont will begin indexing for inflation in 2007. Raising the minimum wage has been attacked on at least two fronts. The latest reading for june 2018 is 251989.

1 adjusted for inflation the federal minimum wage peaked in 1968 at 868 in 2016 dollars. While the national minimum wage did rise roughly in step with productivity growth from its inception in 1938 until 1968 in the more than five decades since then it has not even kept pace with inflation. Here are five facts about the minimum wage and the people who earn it.

Someone working full time 40 hours a week at the minimum wage today of 725 an. Federal inaction has led 17 states and the district of columbia to increase their state minimum wages above the federal rate. While advancements in technology have increased the amount of goods and services that can be produced in a set amount of time wages have remained relatively flat the study points out.

The index has increased 36638 points since the last minimum wage increase or about 17. The argument that minimum wages increase inflation. The minimum wage should have reached 2172 an hour in 2012 if it kept up with increases in worker productivity according to a march study by the center for economic and policy research.

If the minimum wage were indexed to inflation the minimum wage would now stand at 848. But from then on despite the raw minimum wage being increased 14 times it has not kept pace with inflation. If instead the federal minimum wage had grown at the same rate as one percenter earnings it would sit at 2262 per hour today 212 percent higher than the current wage floor.

Nearly seven years after the federal minimum wage was raised to 725 an hour from 655 it has remained stagnant despite the increasingly heated debate over better pay and worker protections. The federal minimum wage was last increased effective july 24 th 2009. Since it was last raised in 2009 to the current 725 per hour the federal minimum has lost about 96 of its purchasing power to inflation.

Oregon washington and florida have found longer term solutions to this problem adjusting their minimum wage annually to account for increases in the cost of living.