A living minimum wage

In his 2014 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama embraced the movement for a $10.10 minimum wage.Two weeks later, he went even further, issuing an executive order that set $10.10 an hour as the minimum wage for all federal contractors, effective January 1, 2015.As President Obama put it in his SOTU address, this executive order requires "federal contractors to pay their federally funded employees a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hourbecause if you cook our troops' meals or wash their dishes, you shouldn't have to live in poverty."This new federal contractor minimum will be indexed to inflation going forward.The statutory minimum wage that applies to all American employers is not indexed to inflation.As a result, its real value has declined steeply over the years.