Why Martin Luther King’s Dream Is Still Unfulfilled

Rather than simply celebrating the accomplishments of his life on Martin Luther King, Jr. day, this year ThinkProgress wants to take a look back at the unfinished parts of King’s legacy. While the civil rights leader changed the conversation around race and justice in the U.S., many of his goals never came to fruition.

Here’s a look at four of the things King demanded but never saw completed:

1. A living wage. One of the demands protesters listed for the March on Washington was a minimum wage. “Anything less than $2.00 an hour,” King and his compatriots argued, fails to “give all Americans a decent standard of living.” In 2014 dollars, a $2 an hour wage would work out to about $15.27. But minimum wage is actually much, much lower — less than half of that — today. Forty-two percent of those earning minimum wage are people of color.

Source: Think Progress