Accounting for inflation, the minimum wage is 27% lower than in 2009

Guardian -  The minimum wage has been stuck at an unlivable $7.25 an hour under three presidents. Adjusting for inflation, today’s minimum wage is now worth less than at any point since 1956. Nearly a third of the workforce, or 52 million people, earn less than $15 an hour, including 47% of Black workers, 46% of Hispanic workers, 20% of Asian American and Indigenous workers, 40% of working women and 50% of working women of color. Raising the minimum wage to even $15 an hour would lift 7.6 million people – many of whom are women, immigrants, Black, Latinx or parents – out of poverty and give more than 50 million people a raise.  According to the Economic Policy Institute, a worker paid the $7.25 federal minimum wage earns 27.4% less in inflation-adjusted terms than what their counterpart was paid in July 2009 when the minimum wage was last increased, and 40.2% less than a minimum wage worker in February 1968, the historical high point of the minimum wage’s value.