The annual earnings of a full-time minimum wage worker in 2015 was only $15,080. For a single parent with two children, this is about $4,000 below the poverty line ($19,096).

Since the 2009 increase in the minimum wage, its real value has fallen by 9 percent—$1,580 for a full-time, year-round worker. Since its peak in 1968, the federal minimum wage has lost one-third of its value. A full-time minimum wage worker in 1968 earned $22,667 in 2015 dollars. If the value of the minimum wage had stayed the same, a minimum wage worker today would earn an additional $7,587.