Automatic adjustment of the minimum wage has been considered by Congress in the past (Levin-Waldman 1998). The 1997 bill that called for an increase to $7.25 also called for indexing the minimum wage to the consumer price index (CPI). The minimum wage, once set, would rise each year along with the increase in the CPI, so that it would keep up with inflation. The principal problem with linking the minimum wage to the CPI is that the CPI overstates the rate of inflation and may not accurately reflect market-caused price increases. A better mechanism would be one that links increases in the minimum wage to increases in productivity