On Wednesday, as part of the Fight for $15 movement, fast food workers and home healthcare workers all across the country joined to protest low wages and call for a $15 per hour minimum wage. In honor of the Fight for $15, President of the Service Employee International Union, Mary Kay Henry, responded to some comments left on the ATTN: Facebook page, to dispel myths about the minimum wage -- and specifically the Fight for $15 movement.

Some on Facebook wondered why wages should be raised for fast food workers when other industries -- which require secondary degrees -- hardly make $15 per hour? The response is that everyone should be able to make a living wage, and many people stuck working low-wage jobs also have secondary degrees.

"A lot of the nation (42 percent) now earns less than $15 per hour," Henry explains. "Many of those people have gotten a secondary education (460,000) and are stuck in low wage, minimum wage jobs, because the entire economy has collapsed and doesn't work for anybody anymore."

Another common refrain about low-wage jobs is that they're not supposed to be career paths, but rather just entry level jobs. The issue is that since the Great Recession, low-wage jobs -- fast-food, retail and temp positions -- are the fastest growing industry, while other industries have not rebounded nearly as well. Some reports show that half of the jobs created in 2013 were low-wage jobs. 

The federal minimum wage was firmly established in 1938 through the Fair Labor Standards act -- and was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1941. The last time the minimum wage was increased was in 2009; it currently stands at $7.25 per hour for non-exempt workers. Yet, the purchasing power of that wage has decreased. "Adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum wage peaked in 1968 at $8.56 (in 2012 dollars)," a 2013 study from the Pew Research Center explains. "Since it was last raised in 2009, to the current $7.25/hour, the federal minimum has lost about 5.8% of its purchasing power to inflation." 

Low wages are not enough for students to work full-time and pay for college, or help workers support their families. If the minimum wage was raised it would affect "21.3 million U.S. workers (or 16.4% of the workforce) would be directly affected by raising the minimum wage to $10.10 by July 2015," according to Pew Research Center. And for more minimum wage myth-busting, check out the video below: