The current minimum wage is the purple line just above $7.00. From 1948 to 1983 the federal minimum wage exceeded $7.25/hr and approached $11/hr. in 2013 dollars, almost a living wage. After another vacation the rich men's club known as the US Senate will consider raising the slave wage to $10.10/hr, but do not spend it yet because undoubtably the 60-vote hurdle to get pass the bourbons will not be reached. In 2013, CEOs made 774 times the pay of minimum wage workers. Of course raising the minimum wage makes economic sense because raising pay would cut the government's food stamp expense by $4.6bn over the next 10 years. The US economy is still consumer driven, so raising the wage of 28 million workers would increase consumer spending and give the GPD a boost of about $22bn. The fact is the United States has one of the lowest minimum wages in the developed world:
Yet US corporations still export jobs overseas to even lower pay "developing" nations!