there is much talk lately about the Obama administration's efforts to raise minimum wage rates in the US. it takes about a minute to come up with a table of minima for the last 60 years in constant dollars and what it reveals is interesting. the highest level obtained in the US was in 1968 — since then there has been a decline over the decades up to the present (2013 in this case being the last year listed) which is listed at $4.87 in constant dollars ($7.25 in current dollars). in order to just equal the minimum rates enjoyed by the largely middle class workforce of the sixties the rate today in present dollars would have to rise to about $15 just to get even with our less divided and divisive past. states like connecticut offering to raise the rate (gradually over three years) to $10.10 dont seem to shine so bright beside the facts.
related statistically and morally to this is the fact that since the meltdown in 2008 the US has lost fourteen places in the human development index, when disparity of income is factored in.
what is the matter with governance, politics and the level of information appreciated by the voting public that such a moral and practical decline can go unnoticed by not just the public but the public's common media informants?
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