In 1912, textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts—mostly immigrant women from countries including Cuba, Ireland, Italy, Syria, and elsewhere—went on strike in response to wage cuts. This strike is sometimes referred to as the Bread and Roses strike, a reference to the slogan and demand inscribed on picket signs, “We Want Bread and Roses Too.” These striking workers produced enough pressure to lead to the passage of the first minimum wage law in the United States, which established wage boards to set wage standards by industry. After 16 states followed suit in response to worker organizing and legal battles over the ensuing two decades, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 mandated a federal minimum wage.

Yet as City University of New York sociologist Stephanie Luce points out, the nationwide minimum wage law did not contain a formula for actually setting a national minimum wage and lacked a mechanism for adjusting it in the future. Any increase to the minimum wage had to be enacted by Congress. Since then, the federal minimum wage has been raised 22 times, most recently in 2009 to reach its current level of $7.25 per hour.

Twelve years is the longest time by far that the federal minimum wage has remained unchanged. What’s more, congressional discourse on increasing it has stalled due to pressure from the business community regarding wage costs borne by companies, including small businesses. The consequences are most telling for women of color, a group that already registers the lowest levels of both earnings and wealth by race, ethnicity, and gender in the United States. Furthermore, the purchasing power of the federal minimum wage has decreased by nearly 20 percent since 2009 and approximately 40 percent since its peak value in 1968, which would be the equivalent of $12.27 in today’s dollars.

Read the full article about the federal minimum wage by Michelle Holder and Shaun Harrison at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.