The federal minimum wage in the United States of America is $7.25 per hour and has stayed the same since July 24, 2009. This April, Senate Democrats tried to pass a bill to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Many Republicans including President Donald Trump oppose the bill. The bill probably won't get passed due to the Republican Dominated Congress. I personally think it should get passed since they're a lot of people in American who are living in poverty. In 2015 the percentage of Americans living in poverty was 13.5% percent or 43.1 million. The bill to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 is doubling the income of a lot of Americans. This will help poor workers like some immigrants. A good thing about the minimum wage is it helps the poor not get exploited by employers offering low wages since they know they don't have options. If the wage is higher, poor people won't get exploited that much. But there's also a downside of this bill. If employers are forced to give their employees double the money, they will have to fire some workers to keep the profit the same. Many economists think it won't matter since, in one way, some people are not getting that much money, but on the other side, some people get fired. While $7.25 is the federal minimum wage, state governments and cities are allowed to sesoli.lkt their own minimum wage. 29 states and the District of Columbia have done so. The minimum wage for Illinois is $8.25 per hour for normal workers and is $4.95 for tipped employees. Its less for tipped employees since they have the chance to get tips whichs can sometimes be a lot. The minimum wage for non-tipped employees in Chicago is $11. It's gonna go up in 2018 (July 1st) to $12, then rising to $13 on July 1st, 2019. The highest minimum wage in the country is DC with $12.50 per hour. Again I think the federal minimum should be raised to $15 an hour. I know that a lot of teenagers have jobs to earn little extra money. The raise will help them get some more money and maybe help their families if they're poor. It will also help a lot of young adults who need more money to survive.