June 17, 2019

The Federal Minimum Wage Hardly Matters Anymore

Charts showing the history of the minimum wage usually adjust for inflation, which always begs the question of which inflation measure is “most accurate.” But the best way to see the trend of the minimum wage is to simply compare each year’s level to the median family income in the same year. Here it is:

This view has less of the familiar sawtooth pattern, and shows that the federal minimum didn’t really peak in the 60s and then decline. In reality, it’s been slowly declining ever since we started collecting income statistics in the 50s. Back then, a full year of minimum-wage work earned you about 40 percent of the median. Today that’s down to 20 percent, and on current trends the minimum wage will decline to its lowest point in history by next year.

For all practical purposes, Republicans have finally reached a long-cherished goal: to eliminate the federal minimum wage. Today, thanks to their unwillingness to support an increase, well under one percent of workers earn the federal minimum wage, which makes it effectively meaningless.

Thanks, GOP! I’m sure your wealthy donors appreciate your flat refusal to entertain even a modest bit of help for the working poor and the working class, instead spending all your energies on tax cuts for corporations and the rich.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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