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When I was in my late teens, back in the mid-70s, minimum wage was $2.00 an hour. Using a handy inflation calculator, that works out to $7.49 an hour in today's money.
On the other hand, today's federal minimum wage of $5.15 translates into $1.37 an hour in 1975 dollars. 40 percent less than the actual minimum wage of that time.
Personally, I think of the minimum wage as the "16-year-olds and illegal immigrant wage." Few others will work for $5.15, but these two groups are desperate for work. Personally, I think the minimum wage is kept artificially low to allow employers to exploit these two groups.
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