Must-Read: : It’s Getting Harder To Move Beyond a Minimum-Wage Job: “Minimum-wage jobs are meant to be the first rung on a career ladder…
…But a growing number of Americans are getting stuck…. Anthony Kemp is one of them. In 2006, he took a job as a cook at a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Oak Park, Illinois. The job paid the state minimum wage, $6.50 an hour at the time, but Kemp figured he could work his way up. ‘Normally, a good cook would make $14, $15, $17 an hour,’ Kemp said. ‘I thought that of course I’d make a better wage.’ He never did; nine years later, the only raises Kemp, 44, has seen have been the ones required by state law. He earns $8.25, the state’s current minimum wage…