Minimum-Wage Policy and Constitutional Inequality: The Paradox of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938

1989 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivien Hart
Keyword(s):  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Social Problem ◽  
Work Force ◽  
Labor Standards ◽  
Wage Policy ◽  
Economic Exploitation ◽  
Fair Labor Standards Act ◽  
Fair Labor

The minimum wage was conceived as an attack on poverty within the work force. Americans first defined “sweated labor” as a category and a social problem, then wrote solutions into law which fundamentally changed that definition and undermined the original purpose. First, in 1912, a problem of economic exploitation of workers became a problem of women unable to protect themselves. Transformed into an issue of the rights of labor, in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) a radically new minimum wage law left those most in need unprotected.

Compensating Tipped Work: Security Cameras as a Tool for Time Use Measurement

2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-54
Author(s):  
Emily D. Campion ◽  
Michael C. Campion ◽  
Michael A. Campion
Keyword(s):  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Time Use ◽  
The United States ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Labor Standards ◽  
Federal Minimum Wage ◽  
Fair Labor Standards Act ◽  
Work Security ◽  
Self Report Data ◽  
Fair Labor

While tipped labor is common in the United States, it presents potential issues for employers unable to demonstrate how tipped workers use their time, thus violating the Fair Labor Standards Act and attracting lawsuits. According to the Fair Labor Standards Act, if tipped employees spend more than 20% of their workweek completing non-tipped tasks (e.g., cleaning, stocking), then they are eligible for the Federal minimum wage ($7.25 in 2018) for the hours beyond 20%, rather than the minimum wage for tipped employees ($2.13 in 2018). Traditionally, employers have used self-report data or observers to determine time use, but these are problematic given self-report bias and the Hawthorne effect. In response, we conducted a study using security cameras to document employee time use in a sample of employees at a large chain restaurant. We found that the sample did not violate the 20% rule. Furthermore, we demonstrated an alternative method to study time use with technology most service-based companies already have.

The Economic Impact of a High National Minimum Wage: Evidence from the 1966 Fair Labor Standards Act

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (S2) ◽  
pp. S329-S367
Author(s):  
Martha J. Bailey ◽  
John DiNardo ◽  
Bryan A. Stuart
Keyword(s):  
Economic Impact ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Labor Standards ◽  
Fair Labor Standards Act ◽  
Fair Labor

scholarly journals The Minimum Wage and the Labor Market

2007 ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guillaume Rocheteau ◽  
Murat Tasci
Keyword(s):  
Labor Market ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Labor Standards ◽  
Federal Minimum Wage ◽  
Fair Labor Standards Act ◽  
Real Value ◽  
Hourly Workers ◽  
Fair Labor ◽  
Three Phases

The federal minimum wage was established in 1938 by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Initially set at 25 cents an hour, the wage has been raised periodically to reflect changes in inflation and productivity. From September 1997 to the beginning of 2007, the minimum wage stood at $5.15 an hour, but its real value declined steadily from about 40 percent of the average private nonsupervisory wage to a mere 30 percent. Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage was lower at the beginning of 2007 than at any time since 1955 (see figure 1). Meanwhile, the wage affected fewer people, as the fraction of hourly workers who earned no more than the minimum dropped from around 15 percent in 1980 to just 2.2 percent in 2006. On May 24, 2007, Congress passed a bill raising the federal minimum wage to $7.25 in three phases over two years.

The Effects of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 on the Southern Seamless Hosiery and Lumber Industries

1997 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 396-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Seltzer
Keyword(s):  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Labor Standards ◽  
Resource Base ◽  
Government Purchases ◽  
Fair Labor Standards Act ◽  
Absolute Decrease ◽  
Fair Labor

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 imposed a binding minimum wage on the southern seamless hosiery and lumber industries. However, the process of adjusting to the new minimum differed across the two industries. Seamless hosiery firms substituted capital for labor and converted or replaced old machinery. Southern lumber firms employed fewer workers relative to northern and western firms, however, changes in their resource base and war-related government purchases prevented an absolute decrease in employment levels. Numerous southern lumber firms continued to pay less than minimum rates by illegally evading the act or taking advantage of the intra-stage exemption.

Outside the Law: Agricultural and Domestic Workers Under the Fair Labor Standards Act

1995 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 416-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phyllis Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Domestic Workers ◽  
Labor Standards ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Fair Labor Standards Act ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Fair Labor

In 1966, at the end of almost two decades of civil rights agitation, men and women of color redressed one significant historical injustice—the legislative exemption of tens of thousands of farmworkers from the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which guaranteed a minimum wage and maximum hours of work for covered workers. In 1974, after almost a decade of feminist agitation, domestic workers convinced the Congress that even private household service fell within the act's minimum-wage coverage of workers engaged in interstate commerce. The two occupations in which most African Americans and a large number of other nonwhite Americans worked in 1938, and in which significant numbers remained in the 1960s and 1970s, joined the roster of jobs covered by this fundamental legislation. Coverage of the country's least powerful workers and its least valued jobs finally overturned central racial and gender inequalities encoded in the nation's basic labor standards law and awarded workers and jobs long-sought recognition and respect.

Time-Table of Minimum Wage Procedure Under the Fair Labor Standards Act

Social Forces ◽  
1942 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-234
Author(s):  
J. C. Shinn ◽  
J. I. Kolehmainen
Keyword(s):  
Minimum Wage ◽  
Labor Standards ◽  
Time Table ◽  
Fair Labor Standards Act ◽  
Fair Labor
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