Feb. 25, 2013 | The federal minimum wage was first put in place in 1938. From that year until 1968 when its value peaked, the purchasing power of the minimum wage increased by more than 140%. As a result, minimum wage workers saw a sharp increase in their living standards. Over this 30-year period, low wage workers shared in the gains of the economy as a whole as the minimum wage rose in step with productivity growth. If workers at the bottom had continued to share in the economy's growth in the years since 1968 as they had in the three decades before 1968, we would be looking at a very different economy and society. Read the full story here.