Unless President Obama is somehow able to borrow from HarryTruman's playbook, Congress is more likely to take on issues suchas immigration and government funding instead of tackling the ideaof raising the minimum wage when its members return from theirsummer break early next week.

Despite recent protests, nationwide tweets, talk shows,speeches by the president and plenty of news coverage, no votes onthe issue of the minimum wage are scheduled in Congress in the nearfuture. Morever, the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013 has not yet hada hearing in the House this year. Six Democrats joined everyRepublican representative in opposition to raising the minimum wagewhen Democrats offered it up during a procedural fight over anunrelated House bill in March. That vote tally was 223-184.

The present federally mandated minimum wage is $7.25 an hour,the rate at which it has been set for the past four years.Depending on the size of a family and the city in which they live,it's possible that even with two full-time minimum wage salaries,that family could still fall below the poverty line.

“Nobody can live on today's minimum wage of $7.25 an hour,”former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said in a Moveon.org video.Reich, a favorite among liberals, served under former PresidentBill Clinton and is a subject in the upcoming documentary,“Inequality for All.”

Reich and others are pushing for what they've described as a“livingwage.” According to an MIT living wage calculator, that figurefor a single parent and their child living in Cincinnati would be$17.56 – if you include child care. The calculation for two adultswithout children in the same city would be $16.20 per hour. Morethan 15 million workers earn the national minimum wage, makingabout $15,080 a year – $50 below the federal poverty line for afamily of two.

The federal rate has been raised a few times in recent decades,most recently in 2007, soon after Democrats gained control of theHouse. States and cities, however, have begun to take matters intotheir own hands, tying it to inflation in two states. The minimumwage in San Francisco is $10.55. According to the NationalConference of State Legislatures, 18 states and the District ofColumbia have a minimum wage higher than the federal level of$7.25.

In March, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Rep. George Miller,D-Calif., introduced a bill to raise the federal minimum wage to$10.10 over three years. Citing statistics showing thatmiddle-class income has dropped almost 10% in the past 23 years,they said the legislation would ensure that the minimum wage isindexed so that it would keep up with inflation rates every year.At the time, Miller noted the average CEO pay is 900% higher thanit was in 1985 and is 360 times the salary of the average, not eventhe lowest paid, worker.

“Every time we've raised the minimum wage,” Harkin said when thebill was announced, “the economy gets stronger, every singletime.”

Conservatives, of course, strenuously object to that point.

Regardless, Obama's call for a hike to $9 an hour, repeated lastweek by new Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, is considered all butdead in the water.

Next Page: The Buck Stopped There

The idea to more than double the federal minimum wage – as in arecent push to raise the rate to $15 in the City of Seattle – isalso not considered viable by many analysts and not surprisingly,business advocates like William Dunkelberg, the chief economist forthe National Federation of Independent Businesses.

Dunkelberg wrote for Forbes in 2010 and reiterated in a YouTube video in late August that a higher minimumwage will make it harder for companies to survive.

“(A higher minimum wage) will not increase spending becauseevery dollar a minimum wage person spends comes out of the samepocket of a tax-paying customer,” he said, adding that a higherminimum wage reduce employment, eliminates job opportunities foryoung people and provides employer incentives to replace workersaltogether with new technology,

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a higher minimum wageeliminates low-wage jobs because that's how small businesses cutcosts and that ends up hurting the people it was supposed tobenefit.

But the idea of nearly doubling the minimum wage is notunprecedented. In 1949, Truman was able to convince amostly doubting Congress to raise the federal minimum wage from 40cents to 75 cents. Based on present-day inflation and costs, the1949 increase is the rough equivalent of bringing hourly wages to$10.70 from $5.70.

The country was mired in a deep recession that year, and fewthought Truman's proposal had a chance of passage. But Truman wasby all accounts a skilled politician and through negotiations andpolitical horse-trading was able to secure the increase and sign aminimum wage hike into law in October 1949.

“This legislation, passed by the 81st Congress at its firstsession, is an important addition to the laws we live by. It is ameasure dictated by social justice. It adds to our economicstrength. It is founded on the belief that full human dignityrequires at least a minimum level of economic sufficiency andsecurity,” Truman said in a statement dated Jan. 24, 1950 as thenew minimum wage law took effect.

According to historians who have studied this time and writtenbooks on Truman's tenure, the legislation had none of the negativeeffects critics had predicted. Unemployment did not rise, andbusiness activity did not diminish. According to a 1954 LaborDepartment study, at least 1.3 million people received immediateraises as soon as the increase went into effect.