Obama Fails On Minimum Wage Pledge

By Dave Jamieson, Huffington Post

January 5, 2012

WASHINGTON -- In 2008, then-President-elect Barack Obama made an ambitious pledge as part of his agenda to fight poverty, one he claimed would help "make work pay for all Americans" in an era of widening economic inequality: By the end of 2011, he would raise the federal minimum wage to $9.50 an hour and index it to inflation, "to make sure that full-time workers can earn a living wage," as his transition team's website put it.

In effect, Obama was pushing for a 31 percent pay raise for millions of the country's lowest earners. But when they collect their first paychecks for 2012, those workers will see no such raise. The federal minimum wage remains $7.25 an hour, the same rate it's been since 2009, when the last of a series of wage bumps signed into law by George W. Bush was implemented. The cost of living continues to climb although the wage floor remains the same.

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The FactsThe Facts

$10.69

How much the federal minimum wage would be if it had kept up with inflation over the past 40 years. Instead, it’s $7.25. Learn More

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