Minimum Wage Act
The subject of minimum wage is always one that garners much debate across the United States of America. Many supporters of minimum wage always support it being raised to allow workers to more properly support their families. The opposition insists that raising the minimum wage will do more harm than good to the country as it causes inflation. This age-old debate started with the act that first introduced minimum wage into the country, the Fair Labor Standards Act.
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The Basics
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"Minimum wage" is a term used to describe the lowest wages that a business is allowed to pay its employees per hour. The minimum wage is set at a federal level. However, states are allowed to offer employees higher minimum wages if they see fit. Defined another way, the minimum wage is the lowest price employees are allowed to offer their services to an employer.
History
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The national minimum wage is a part of the FLSA, or "Fair Labor Standards Act." The FLSA is a law passed in 1938 that set a national minimum wage at 25 cents per hour. In addition to covering minimum wage, the FLSA put into practice a set of standards concerning the number of hours a minor can work as well as overtime rules. When the FLSA was originally passed, 25 cents per hour was enough for a person to support a family. The FLSA has no provisions as to exactly when and how the national minimum wage should be updated, so that task falls to Congress.
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Calculations
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Currently, the amount of money that minimum wage is raised by and when minimum wage is raised are not decided by any one specific calculation. Because of this, the amount by which the national minimum wage is raised is always a subject of much debate. It is agreed upon that the minimum wage should be enough for a worker to support a family, though that fact is not necessarily taken into account when deciding how much to actually raise the minimum wage.
States
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While all states must enforce the national minimum wage, they can also introduce their own specific state minimum wages. The state minimum wage can never be lower than the national minimum wage. An example of this is in Washington where the state minimum wage in 2009 was $8.55, which was higher than the national minimum wage of $7.25.
Process
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A congressman or senator in support of raising the national minimum wage will introduce a bill into the Senate or House stating that fact. He will state in the bill how much he thinks the minimum wage should be raised. Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts is an example of someone who routinely introduced bills such as these into the Senate. The vast majority of the time these bills are voted down. Every few years one of these bills will pass and a raise in the national minimum wage will go into effect.
Bills must pass both houses of congress then be signed by the president to become law.
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References
- Photo Credit www.congress.org
