Minimum Wage

Raising minimum wage: A help or harm?, July 8, 2012, National Public Radio: “Back in 1912, Massachusetts became the first place in America to introduce a minimum wage, but it would take another quarter century before a national minimum wage was set. President Franklin Roosevelt made it law in 1938, that any hourly worker had to be paid at least 25 cents an hour. It was revolutionary, and very few countries had anything like it. Every few years, the federal minimum wage would go up, helping millions of Americans inch closer to a middle-class lifestyle. Something changed in the early 1970s, however, and since then, the minimum wage has fallen by around 25 percent. Fast-forward to today. The minimum wage is currently $7.25. But in 1968, you’d make the equivalent of $10 an hour in today’s money…”