Raising the Minimum Wage Remains a Core Civil Rights Priority
It’s been eight years since the last federal minimum wage hike.

Last raised eight years ago on July 24, 2009 to $7.25 an hour, our current federal minimum wage — in addition to the subminimum wage for tipped working people — is low by historical standards and remains inadequate for meeting the basic expenses faced by working families.
The civil and human rights community supports raising the minimum wage because economic rights are civil rights — and we’ve long made clear our commitment to all Americans being paid fairly for the work they do. Indeed, an increased minimum wage was one of the core demands of the August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, an event organized by a man who would later become chairman of The Leadership Conference’s executive committee — Bayard Rustin. But nearly 54 years after the March on Washington, the federal minimum wage continues to fall short of providing working people and their families their full dignity and a “decent standard of living,” as called for at the march.
While cities like Seattle, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. have taken action to raise wages, some states have passed preemption laws to prevent local wage hikes — in some cases actually lowering the minimum wage. St. Louis’ minimum wage increase, for example, was recently nullified when the Missouri state legislature passed a preemption law. All the while, legislation to raise the minimum wage at the federal level has languished.
That’s not for lack of effort by congressional Democrats. Two months ago, Sens. Bernie Sanders, I. Vt., and Patty Murray, D. Wash., and Reps. Bobby Scott, D. Va., and Keith Ellison, D. Minn., introduced the Raise the Wage Act, which would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2024, gradually eliminate the subminimum wage for tipped working people, and sunset the ability of employers to pay working people with a disability a subminimum wage. It would also index the minimum wage to median wages.
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, if Congress enacted this legislation it would directly lift the wages of 22.5 million workers and would disproportionately impact people of color, and particularly women of color, who are overrepresented in minimum wage and other low-wage jobs.
And the bill’s elimination of subminimum wages is especially important to the civil rights community because the subminimum wage for tipped working people has been frozen (at $2.13 per hour) for more than a quarter century and because it has its roots in post-abolition racist attitudes. It’s less visible to Americans today, but that subminimum wage continues the legacy of a caste system by perpetuating racial and gender inequality while dehumanizing millions of hardworking people who depend on the generosity of strangers to make a living for themselves and their families.
Today, eight years after the last federal minimum wage increase took effect, civil and human rights organizations remain committed to fighting for a wage hike for American workers. It’s time we acknowledge the dignity of all workers and their contributions to our nation.








