History of minimum wage in the USA

Minimum Wage

A history of the minimum wage in the US: https://storymaps.esri.com/stories/2018/minimum-wage/

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Notes:

• At the highest level, the variability of minimum wage policies from state to state is striking—this ranges from some states in the South that don’t even require a minimum wage, to places like D.C. that have a $12.50 minimum wage (currently the highest for a state or territory).
• Similarly, the number of cities and counties that have taken it upon themselves to raise wages locally is impressive, and have the most robust plans for raising minimum wages over the next few years.
• Regardless of an area’s minimum wage, all states fail to guarantee minimum wages that actually match up to the cost of living for their respective areas.
• As such, there is a growing divide between states that have raised minimum wages and are at least bringing minimum wages closer to the cost of living, versus those states that are slower to raise minimum wages (or don’t raise wages at all) and fall much further below the local cost of living.
• Underlying all of these points is the profound impact of inflation over the last four decades: Even while minimum wages have nominally increased, inflation has devalued the dollar in such a way that even in 2018 some wages today have less purchasing ability than nominally lesser wages in the 1970s.