The Minimum Wage Law

It is rather common in today's society, and if you challenge it, you are labeled a radical, or a social elitist. The minimum-wage law began here in America in 1938. According to the U.S. department of labor website the Free Standard of Labor Act of 1938 "In its final form, the act applied to industries whose combined employment represented only about one-fifth of the labor force. In these industries, it banned oppressive child labor and set the minimum hourly wage at 25 cents, and the maximum workweek at 44 hours."

The law says that we cannot have workers being paid less than twenty-five cents. This means that is someone makes me less than twenty-six cents an hour, I cannot hire him. However, this also means those that are already working for me, and yet making me less than twenty-six cents an hour, I must fire them. Those that I would like to hire, and yet are unskilled, may not be able, immediately upon joining the work force, make me twenty-six cents an hour. If they were given a few years, they would begin making me that amount of money, and yet, they will never receive that experience because there is a wall in-between them and the labor force. The wall of minimum wage dumps those that are less productive, and keeps out those that are unskilled. It lowers business owners’ profits, and thus makes fewer jobs available. In the end, it closes the system, only allowing workers a job that can make a company more money than the minimum wage.

Through His Strength We Will Conquer,

Andrew C. Abbott