Rising wage inequality and stagnant real wages have contributed to inequality in family incomes during the
past three decades. While the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program (SNAP) have helped mitigate the impact on low-income families (Bitler and Hoynes 2010), federal
minimum wage policy has not contributed to the solution.
The federal minimum wage has failed to keep pace with both the cost of living and the median wage in the labor market.
As a consequence, working full-time at the minimum wage does not allow many families to escape poverty, or to attain
economic self-sufficiency.