Minimum Wage Thesis
During a ‘fireside chat’ days before President Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 into law, he said, “Do not let any calamity-howling executive with an income of $1,000 a day, ...tell you that a wage of $11 a week is going to have a disastrous effect on all American industry” (DOL.gov). This was 76 years ago by a Democratic president whose rhetoric sounds like something our current Democratic president would say. President Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor and Standards Act on Saturday June 25, 1938 and which effectively ended child labor in America and mandated an hourly wage of twenty-five cents which affected one in every five workers (DOL.gov). The FLSA also guaranteed workers had a maximum workweek of 44 hours and anything
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The minimum wage was designed to create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of employees. Others have argued that the primary purpose was to aid the lowest paid of the nation's working population, those who lacked sufficient bargaining power to secure for themselves a minimum subsistence wage” (law.Cornell.edu). Minimum wage laws and many other labor-related laws weren’t enacted purely because a group of ‘liberal socialists’ wanted to stick it to profitable businesses. There was public call for action about the lack of bargaining power workers had with businesses, much like what we want out of our action plan. Laborers were not being adequately paid for the quality of their work. It goes against what free market advocates say when they argue minimum wage should should not exist or not be raised so that laborers can set their own price for their skills. The reality is that JC Penny is not going to pay a cashier any more than they have to. The concept of having a skill that companies would pay more for exists in the higher pay grades, not at the low-tier level. Low wage workers in general lack skills that would give companies incentive to compete over them; meaning Burger King and Wendy’s are not getting into a bidding war over an applicant who has more
The minimum wage was designed to create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of employees. Others have argued that the primary purpose was to aid the lowest paid of the nation's working population, those who lacked sufficient bargaining power to secure for themselves a minimum subsistence wage” (law.Cornell.edu). Minimum wage laws and many other labor-related laws weren’t enacted purely because a group of ‘liberal socialists’ wanted to stick it to profitable businesses. There was public call for action about the lack of bargaining power workers had with businesses, much like what we want out of our action plan. Laborers were not being adequately paid for the quality of their work. It goes against what free market advocates say when they argue minimum wage should should not exist or not be raised so that laborers can set their own price for their skills. The reality is that JC Penny is not going to pay a cashier any more than they have to. The concept of having a skill that companies would pay more for exists in the higher pay grades, not at the low-tier level. Low wage workers in general lack skills that would give companies incentive to compete over them; meaning Burger King and Wendy’s are not getting into a bidding war over an applicant who has more