CNN: The minimum wage hasn't gone up in nearly 10 years. That's a new record

By Lydia DePillis
CNN, June 14, 2019

(CNN Business) The US economy is setting all kinds of records this year, and one of them is the length of time the federal minimum wage has gone without an increase. America's base pay rate has remained at $7.25 an hour since July 24, 2009 — 3,614 days ago on Sunday. That will be the biggest time lapse since July 2007, when the wage hadn't risen since September 1997.

The decade since the minimum wage last went up also covers what in July will become America's longest economic expansion on record. But workers' pay hasn't been recovering that whole time. In fact, after adjusting for inflation, median weekly earnings (which also account for hours worked) have risen only 2.9% since the second quarter of 2009 after dipping in the early years of the recovery. ...

Even large businesses like Walmart and McDonald's, many of which have been forced to raise their own front-line worker salaries in order to attract staff, have stopped fighting minimum wage hikes. The National Federation of Independent Business remains opposed, but they're not the only voice of small companies: More than 700 businesses have signed a pledge in favor of gradually rising the minimum wage to $15 by 2024.That's what a bill in Congress called the Raise the Wage Act would do ...