<P> The 1938 minimum wage law only applied to "employees engaged in interstate commerce or in the production of goods for interstate commerce," but in amendments in 1961 and 1966, the federal minimum wage was extended (with slightly different rates) to employees in large retail and service enterprises, local transportation and construction, state and local government employees, as well as other smaller expansions; a grandfather clause in 1990 drew most employees into the purview of federal minimum wage policy, which now set the wage at $3.80 . </P> <P> In 2006, voters in six states (Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and Ohio) approved statewide increases in the state minimum wage . The amounts of these increases ranged from $1 to $1.70 per hour and all increases were designed to annually index to inflation . Some politicians in the United States have advocated linking the minimum wage to the Consumer Price Index, thereby increasing the wage automatically each year based on increases to the Consumer Price Index . So far, Ohio, Oregon, Missouri, Vermont and Washington have linked their minimum wages to the consumer price index . Minimum wage indexing also takes place each year in Florida, San Francisco, California, and Santa Fe, New Mexico . </P> <P> The federal minimum wage in the United States was reset to its current rate of $7.25 per hour in July 2009 . Some U.S. territories (such as American Samoa) are exempt . Some types of labor are also exempt: employers may pay tipped labor a minimum of $2.13 per hour, as long as the hour wage plus tip income equals at least the minimum wage . Persons under the age of 20 may be paid $4.25 an hour for the first 90 calendar days of employment (sometimes known as a youth, teen, or training wage) unless a higher state minimum exists . The 2009 increase was the last of three steps of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, which was signed into law as a rider to the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007, a bill that also contained almost $5 billion in tax cuts for small businesses . </P> <P> In April 2014, the U.S. Senate debated the Minimum Wage Fairness Act (S. 1737; 113th Congress). The bill would have amended the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) to increase the federal minimum wage for employees to $10.10 per hour over the course of a two - year period . The bill was strongly supported by President Barack Obama and many of the Democratic Senators, but strongly opposed by Republicans in the Senate and House . Later in 2014, voters in the Republican - controlled states of Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota considered ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage above the national rate of $7.25 per hour, which were successful in all 4 states . The results provided evidence that raising minimum wage has support across party lines . </P>

When was the national minimum wage last raised