
Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity
CBSN
The federal minimum wage in the U.S. has remained glued at $7.25 an hour for the last 12 years, the longest stretch without a boost since it was first adopted in 1938. Yet there's another revealing figure that underscores how the minimum wage — created by Congress after the Great Depression as a way to ensure that Americans were fairly paid for their labor — has failed to keep up with the times.
Even as workers have been more industrious — helping drive corporate profits, the stock market and CEO compensation to record heights — their pay has flatlined, or even declined when factoring in inflation. If the minimum wage had kept pace with gains in the economy's productivity over the last 50 years, it would be nearly $26 an hour today, or more than $50,000 a year in annual income, one economist notes. "That may sound pretty crazy, but that's roughly what the minimum wage would be today if it had kept pace with productivity growth since its value peaked in 1968," wrote Dean Baker, senior economist at the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research, in a recent blog post.
Washington — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran man who was deported back to his home country and then returned to the U.S. for federal prosecution, is set to remain in jail for several more days as lawyers debate whether the Justice Department can stop him from being deported if he is released from federal custody pending his trial on human smuggling charges, according to The Associated Press.