Context

In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act established a federal minimum wage of $0.25. Over the years, amendments to that act have raised the rate. Today, that rate is $7.25, having remained so since 2009. In this dataset, I map the journey this metric has taken, adding other economic indicators for each year.

4/26/2022 Update In addition, I have added a dataset which compares min wage increases to the political party which controlled the white house, senate, and house of representatives.

Content

The dataset contains the minimum wage, inflation, unemployment rate, and GDP growth for each year.

Sources for data

Minimum wage: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/minimum-wage/history/chart

Inflation: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/

Unemployment rate & GDP growth: https://www.thebalance.com/unemployment-rate-by-year-3305506

Banner image: https://unsplash.com/photos/8lnbXtxFGZw

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