16 Years Without a Federal Minimum Wage Hike Is an Outrage

When the minimum wage does not go up, it goes down in buying power. The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 per hour since July 24, 2009. For full-time workers that amounts to $15,080 if you are paid for 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year.

The minimum wage is falling further and further behind the rising cost of living. The federal minimum wage peaked in buying power way back in 1968, when it was worth $15.09 in 2025 dollars, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator.

Too little, too late minimum wage increases are the next best thing to eliminating it for minimum wage opponents.

The federal minimum wage was established in 1938 through the Fair Labor Standards Act, which aimed to eliminate labor conditions “detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and general well-being of workers” and detrimental to fair competition among businesses.

We are now 16 years into the longest period in history without a federal minimum wage increase.

Twenty states have minimum wages no higher than the $7.25 federal level: Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

Five of those states – Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee – don’t even have a state minimum wage and in Georgia and Wyoming the state minimum is $5.15, so the federal $7.25 minimum wage applies.

When the minimum wage is too low, workers can be making more than the minimum and still struggle to pay for rent, food, and other necessities.

In Louisiana, for example, the median hourly wage for home health and personal care aides in 2024 was just $10.18, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That means half of those workers earned less than $10.18. The median wage for fast food cooks was $10.70 in Mississippi and $11.73 in Texas. The median wage for childcare workers was $10.46 in Mississippi, $10.63 in Louisiana, and $10.78 in Alabama. Remember, the median wage is the midpoint, not the bottom.

The federal wage floor matters across the country. In Pennsylvania, for example, the $13.62 median hourly wage for childcare workers was much lower than the $17.61 median wage for childcare workers in neighboring New York, which has increased the minimum wage multiple times while Pennsylvania has not.

Fortunately, 30 states now have minimum wages higher than $7.25, but many are still below the $15.09 value of the federal minimum wage in 1968, adjusted for the cost of living.

Seventeen states plus D.C. have a minimum wage of $15 or higher or are phasing in scheduled increases to $15 or higher: Alaska, D.C., California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington State. The highest now are D.C. at $17.95 and Washington at $16.66.

Nationally, more than 14 million workers are paid less than $15 per hour, including overtime, tips, and commissions, according to the Economic Policy Institute’s Low Wage Workforce Tracker. Nearly 27 million make less than $17.

Raising the minimum wage is good for business as well as workers. Workers are also customers, and minimum wage increases boost the consumer spending that businesses depend on.

Raising the minimum wage also pays off in lower employee turnover, lower hiring and training costs, increased productivity, and better customer service, which keeps customers coming back.

Decades of rigorous research show that raising the minimum wage is beneficial and does not cause job loss.

State and local minimum wage increases are important, where possible. But it’s long past time to raise the federal minimum wage so people can earn decent wages wherever they live.