Federal Minimum Wage Has Failed to Keep Up with Economy
While many advocates argue that the federal minimum wage has failed to keep up with inflation, a new report from the Economic Policy Institute argues that the minimum wage has fallen much further behind the productivity of the American workforce. The Federal Minimum Wage Has Been Eroded by Decades of Inaction finds that if the federal floor had kept pace with the growth of average worker productivity, then the minimum wage would be as high as $18.85 – over two and a half times greater than its current level. The report finds that minimum wage workers today are paid roughly 25 percent less than their counterparts in 1968.