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Happy Sweet 16 to the Federal Minimum Wage
Sixteen candles, sixteen years of $7.25 an hour.
In 2007, Congress amended the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to increase the federal minimum wage, the first increase since 1997. This increase occurred in three stages: it rose from $5.15 to $5.85 in 2007, then to $6.55 in 2008, and finally to $7.25 on July 24, 2009.
Since then…nothing.
And so, here we are in 2025, coming up on the 16th anniversary of the last increase in the federal minimum wage without any serious effort by our representatives in congress to increase it. There have been attempts, of course, but none have succeeded.
A lot was going on in 2009 of course. We were recovering from the Great Recession, which in retrospect really kicked the ongoing destruction of the middle class into high gear by fast-tracking wealth transfer to the top 1%. The Occupy Wall Street protest (remember that?) happened in 2011, for perspective.
(Personal note: as someone who graduated college in 2009 and was job hunting at the time, I was desperate to hang onto my union job at a local grocery store. It was bad times.)
In response, the “Fight for $15” movement was started in 2012 based on many workers’ inability to pay their bills while working minimum-wage service jobs…
