How is the value of a dollar defined?
The printing of dollars is like snow flakes in a snow storm. They are coming so fast it is impossible to count them. The more plentiful something is the less value it has.
Let's say I had $980 dollars in the bank the day before Nixon took us off the gold standard and I was smart enough to go down and cash them in. I would have received 28 one ounce gold coins. Now today I want to reverse that process and sell my 28 gold coins; on the day this was written I would receive $25,928.
However, if I had left the $980 dollars in the bank and today wanted to get gold. I would receive one ounce of gold and have $54 of today's cheap dollars left. It is another way of saying that the minimum wage law has not kept up with the cheapening of the dollar.
Using the above ratio the $1.60 minimum wage in 1971 would be $42.33 today. No, I do not think we should make that the minimum wage of today; but I do think that we should recognize that cheapening of the dollar hurts the workers the most.