The State of the Minimum Wage

The State of the Minimum Wage

There is no state where a person can afford a two-bedroom apartment working a forty-hour week on any state’s minimum wage.

Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

For the first time since the recession, Rhode Island raised its minimum wage, from $7.40 to $7.75. That figure is still shy of neighboring states Massachusetts’s ($8.00) and Connecticut’s ($8.25) wages, and doesn’t change the fact that there is no state where a person can afford a two-bedroom apartment working a forty-hour week on any state’s minimum wage.

The federal minimum wage (despite campaign promises) is still $7.25, lower than what a minimum-wage worker made in 1968, adjusted for inflation.

On his show Saturday, Nation Editor-at-Large Chris Hayes put Rhode Island’s news into perspective, along with a host of stories that you should know from last week.

—Zoë Schlanger

Support The Nation’s June Fundraising Campaign

With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.

As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation,” millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-“d” populist ideas—not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Nation elevates progressive ideas, movements, and elected officials achieving real change across the country into the national conversation. At the same time, our journalists are exposing how crypto and AI-funded super PACs are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to knock out candidates they oppose, reporting on the devastating impact of the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, and sounding the alarm on attempts by red states to quickly redraw electoral maps, disenfranchising Southern Black voters.

We can play this critical role because of support from readers like you. This June, we’re raising $20,000 to power The Nation’s independent journalism in the run-up to November’s immensely consequential elections.

It’s in our power to build a more just society, and your support at this critical moment brings us closer to that bold vision. I hope you’ll donate today.

Onward,

Katrina vanden Huevel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x