Drew Costley Photography 

In March 2014, a group of workers from the Washington, D.C. region gathered at Union Station in the city and marched to Capitol Hill, demanding a raise in the minimum wage. Two months earlier, then-D.C. mayor Vincent Gray signed a bill into law raising the minimum wage to $10/hour. The Council of the District of Columbia wanted the minimum wage raised to $11.50/hour.

 

The demonstration came during a time in the United States where low-wage workers in major cities across the country were demanding a living wage. It also came as the major retail corporation Walmart was building its first stores in Washington, D.C. and threatened to pull out of D.C. if the wage was raised to $12.50/hour, which is what these protesters were demanding.

 

According to the Living Wage Calculator from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the living wage for an adult in Washington, D.C. is $14.54.