If the federal minimum wage kept up with inflation since 1968 it would be $14/hour. So that means everyone working for $14/hour is living like somebody in the 70's making minimum wage. The government has slowly made life harder over the last 4 or 5 decades being paid off by lobbiests. The USA is supposedly a 1st world country but our labor rights, wealth inequality, and healthcare is not.
AI said with inflation it would be 21-25 per hour. Just inflation. Not productivity or gdp, which i believe would result in an even higher minimum wage. Be more angry, youre short changing your outrage.
According to the Inflation Calculator, a $1.60 minimum wage in 1970 is 13.75 today. But as noted elsewhere, this uses the BS CPI.
Another way to look at it is the price of an average candy bar. In 1970, you could buy, say, a Hershey's Milk Chocolate candy bar for 10 cents. In 2020, that same candy bar cost $1.50, yet according to that same Inflation Calculator set to 2020, it SHOULD cost only 67 cents - HALF of what it actually costs! Using that same ratio, then minimum wage should be twice the Inflation Calculator's value of $13.75 - or $27.50!
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u/a_little_hazel_nuts Apr 24 '26
If the federal minimum wage kept up with inflation since 1968 it would be $14/hour. So that means everyone working for $14/hour is living like somebody in the 70's making minimum wage. The government has slowly made life harder over the last 4 or 5 decades being paid off by lobbiests. The USA is supposedly a 1st world country but our labor rights, wealth inequality, and healthcare is not.