This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The US federal minimum wage has gone a record length of time without an increase, with the $7.25-an-hour base, remaining unchanged for nearly a decade as of Sunday.

For minimum-wage workers who have a 40-hour work week, and work 52 weeks without having any unpaid time off, this equates to just $15,080 annually, according to a CNN calculation.

Twenty-one states reportedly use the federal minimum wage as their base. Lawmakers approved the last increase on 24 July 2009.

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The number stands in sharp contrast to what some researchers believe is an average living wage. Two working parents in a family of four would need to earn $67,146 to cover expenses. That equates to $16.14 an hour for each parent, CNN reported.

The record delay comes amid potentially significant economic growth.

The US has enjoyed roughly 10 years of economic expansion, which may soon become the longest such expansion in this country’s history, according to USA Today. Inflation, meanwhile, has led to a loss of purchasing power.

CBS reported that $7.25 in 2009 is valued at only about $6 in 2019. The cost of living has soared 18% since the last increase, per CBS’s report.

More than 24 cities and states have enacted higher minimum wages, however. In Massachusetts, for example, the baseline is $12 an hour. In New York City, workplaces with more than 11 employees must pay at least $15 an hour, per CBS.

Nearly every Democrat vying for their party’s nomination in the 2020 presidential election supports almost doubling the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Some hopefuls have been visiting picket lines alongside McDonald’s workers, who were key to launching the Fight for $15 initiative that helped boost the minimum wage across some US states, CNBC said.

The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, reportedly vowed in 2017 that if Democrats regained control of the house, they would greenlight a $15 minimum “in the first 100 hours”.

The Raise the Wage Act, which would require a $15 minimum, has had neither a full House vote nor undergone a vote in the appropriate Senate committee, CNN points out.

The US minimum wage was first approved by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1938, to bolster the economy. At the time, it was 25 cents an hour, or about $4.45 in 2019 dollars. It has since been raised 22 times, CNN notes.

The second-largest time lapse in such an increase was marked in July 2007, after Congress failed to approve any increases since September 1997, CNN reported.