Wage war

Minimum wage isn’t what it used to be—it’s worse

The federal minimum wage was established in 1938. Since then it’s been adjusted 29 times to keep up with inflation and rising living standards. The most recent change was in 2009, when the minimum wage increased to $7.25 an hour—but that hasn’t been enough to maintain the value of the wage.

Adjusted for inflation, today’s minimum wage is worth about 33 percent less than it was in 1968. The wage was raised to $1.60 that year, which equates to $11.04 in 2016 dollars.

Some states have taken the initiative on making the minimum wage a livable wage. Twenty-nine states and D.C. have set a minimum wage higher than the federal standard, and many of them have built in some automatic annual cost of living adjustment. And these states are seeing improvements in wages.

Courtney Cullison is a policy analyst with Oklahoma Policy Institute. For the rest of this article and more, visit okpolicy.org.