new way of setting a minimum wage--EPI

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June Zaccone

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Jun 15, 2026, 5:13:49 PMJun 15

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Setting high standards for a federal minimum wage Raising the wage to two-thirds of the national median wage would lift pay for nearly 40 million workers • Ben Zipperer • May 21, 2026

Key takeaways:

The federal minimum wage is at its lowest real value in 77 years. Frozen at $7.25 since 2009, the federal minimum wage has lost 30% of its purchasing power during this 17-year freeze.
Setting the federal minimum wage at two-thirds of the national median wage would raise pay for 39.6 million workers in 2030, about 1 in 4 of the wage-earning workforce.
The policy would move the federal floor meaningfully toward one definition of a living wage, meeting EPI’s Family Budget Calculator thresholds in half of U.S. counties for a single adult working full time. But it falls short for many families, meaning that policies to strengthen unionization, provide a more robust safety net, and keep unemployment low remain essential.
Decades of economic research support this two-thirds benchmark, finding little to no employment loss from ambitious minimum wage increases.
Indexing the federal minimum wage to median wage growth would lock in these gains. Median wages typically outpace prices, so median wage indexing would prevent the kind of decades-long slide that has eroded the current floor.

Setting a minimum based on the median wage would obviate the need for the need to change the law to effect a rising minimum. Unfortunately, our lagging wages make this less satisfactory than it would be with a fairer economy. jz