Minimum wage

“What gives me hope is something that seemed impossible in 2012 is now very possible,” Henry told Marketplace.

The federal minimum wage has been changed since 2009, when Congress raised it from $6.55 to $7.25 an hour.

A record number of states and cities are raising their minimum wage this year, according to a tally from the National Employment Law Project.

Will employers notice? Many are already raising wages for their workers because of the labor crunch.

UC Berkeley Economist David Card reflects on his now Nobel Prize winning research.

A study finds that the disparity is the worst in California cities.

The average CEO makes hundreds of times more money than the average worker. A maximum wage policy would narrow that gap.

This is the longest the U.S. has gone without seeing an increasing to the federal minimum wage. President Joe Biden is increasing it for child care workers in his American Families Plan, and for federal contractors through executive order.

Raising the minimum from $7.25 to $15 per hour is part of the American Rescue Act, now making its way through Congress.

After the Civil War, companies didn’t want to reach into their own pockets to pay recently freed enslaved people.