It is an absolute disgrace that the richest country in the world has a Federal minimum wage ($7.25 per hour) that doesn't even come close to raising those workers above the poverty line.
History:
The origin of the minimum wage is generally thought to be the Ordinance of Labourers, which was a decreed in 1349 by medieval England's King Edward III. King Edie didn't establish the minumum wage out of the goodness of his Royal heart, the King, along with other wealthy landowners were totally dependent on serfs (another word for slaves) to work his land and in 1348 the Black Plague had pretty well decimated the population of serfs so the King established the minimum wage as an incentive.
Flash forward five hundred or so years and we have New Zealand as the first country to enact a minimum wage for its citizens. Austrailia (1896) was next, then Great Britain (1909). The US didn't 'get with the program' until 1938, and, as you can see - still hasn't figured out that having millions of working Americans not earning a wage that keeps them below the poverty line is bad for the economy.
Or, in the words of Benjamin Todd Jealous, an American political and civic leader and former president and chief executive officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP).
"No person can maximize the American Dream on the minimum wage."
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