Whether and how the federal floor on wages should be changed — the most extensively studied question in labor economics, with genuine methodological disputes and genuine value disagreements about how to weigh competing outcomes
The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 per hour since July 2009 — the longest period without an increase since the federal minimum wage was created in 1938. In real purchasing power, it is worth less today than it was in 1968. The question of whether and how to change it involves genuine empirical disputes and genuine disagreements about which costs matter most.