Why a Min-Wage Hike, in Three Sentences

The minimum wage bill currently being pushed by Senator Kennedy would raise the minimum wage to $7.25 by 2009. By comparison, the minimum wage was almost $8.00 an hour (in 2006 dollars) in the late sixties. This means that if Kennedy’s bill were approved, the real value of the minimum wage in 2009 would still be more than 10 percent lower than it was in the late sixties, even though productivity will have increased by more than 120 percent over this period.
- Dean Baker

(Courtesy of Max Sawicky, h/t to Brad deLong)