Burn The Playbook
17 Years. $7.25. On Purpose.
The federal minimum wage is at its lowest value in 70 years. A minimum wage worker cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment anywhere in America. Congress knows.
WASHINGTON: The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. It has been $7.25 since July 24, 2009. That is seventeen years without a raise, the longest period without an increase in the history of the federal minimum wage.
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Adjusted for inflation, $7.25 had already lost 27% of its purchasing power by mid-2022, per the Economic Policy Institute, and it has kept losing ground since. The Center for Economic and Policy Research now puts the wage floor at its lowest real value in 70 years. A minimum wage worker in 2026 has less real purchasing power than a minimum wage worker in 1956.
The NLIHC's "Out of Reach 2026" report put the national two-bedroom "housing wage," what a full-time worker needs to earn to afford a modest two-bedroom at 30% of income, at $34.73 per hour. That is nearly five times the federal minimum. At $7.25 an hour, a worker would need roughly 182 hours a week, more than four full-time jobs, to afford that same apartment. Not one state, county, or metro area in America has a two-bedroom that $7.25 covers.
Look up the Labor Department's own wage history yourself, seventeen years frozen on one government chart.
Quick break before The Receipts, and this one is about what's for dinner.
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The Receipts
1. 17 years frozen: $7.25/hour since July 24, 2009. Longest freeze in the history of the federal minimum wage. 20 states still default to the federal floor. Source: U.S. Department of Labor, federal minimum wage history; CEPR, July 8, 2026.
2. 70-year low: Adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum wage is worth less than it was in 1956 and 27% less than the day it was set in 2009, a gap that has only widened since EPI ran the numbers in 2022. Source: CEPR, July 2026; EPI, July 2022.
3. 182 hours/week: What a minimum-wage worker would need to work to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment. The national "housing wage" is $34.73/hour, nearly five times the federal minimum. No state, county, or metro area in America is affordable at $7.25. Source: NLIHC, "Out of Reach 2026," July 23, 2026.
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The Dispatch
The federal minimum wage is not low by accident. It is low by vote.
Congress has voted on minimum wage increases multiple times since 2009. Each time, it failed. Not because the economics did not work (Australia pays $16+, Germany pays $14+, the UK pays $15+) but because the people who vote on the minimum wage do not earn it.
The median net worth of a member of Congress exceeds $1 million. They set the price of labor for the people who serve their coffee, clean their offices, and staff their campaigns. They have decided, for seventeen consecutive years, that $7.25 is enough for someone else's life.
The administration's FY2026 budget proposed cutting HUD funding by $32.9 billion, a 44% cut, including $26.7 billion out of rental assistance, the Section 8 money that keeps the housing-wage math survivable for millions of the same workers stuck at $7.25. They will not raise the wage. They will not fund the housing. And they will call it freedom.
Sources
U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division: history of federal minimum wage rates, $7.25 effective July 24, 2009. source
Center for Economic and Policy Research: "17 Years Without a Federal Minimum Wage Increase," lowest inflation-adjusted value in seven decades, 20 states at $7.25, July 2026. source
Economic Policy Institute: "The value of the federal minimum wage is at its lowest point in 66 years," 27.4% decline since 2009, July 2022. source
National Low Income Housing Coalition: "Out of Reach 2026," $34.73 national two-bedroom housing wage, 182 hours a week at $7.25, July 2026. source
National Low Income Housing Coalition: FY26 budget request details, 44% HUD cut, $26.72 billion rental assistance cut, June 2025. source
Multifamily Dive: Trump proposes $32.9 billion HUD cut including Section 8, May 2025. source
— Michael Starr Hopkins · Washington, D.C.
Burn Notice
Seven dollars and twenty-five cents. In 2026. In America.
That is not a wage. It is a statement. And the statement is: your labor is worth less than the cost of the life it is supposed to sustain.
The minimum wage is not a floor. It is a ceiling. And they nailed it shut seventeen years ago.
A wage that has not moved in 17 years is not a policy. It is a position. And the position is that some people's time is not worth counting.
— MSH
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