Minimum Wage Adoption Sources

Overview | Early Minimum Wages | The FLSA - Reasons and Conflict | Conclusion & References

Conclusion

In looking at the economic factors in the adoption of the US minimum wage, it is important to make the distinction between perceptions and the actual effect of the wage floor legislation. State-level minimum wages were perceived to help relieve the economic burden of low wages created by the Depression. Yet the National Industrial Recovery Act’s short-lived minimum wage provisions did nothing of the sort. While it is true that one admirable goal of minimum wage legislation is to alleviate poverty, it does not appear that that could be as major a factor during the Depression Era.

The gendered social analysis proves to have similar insufficiencies of evidence. Leonard’s argument provides only an extreme view of the gender divide, and seems determined to stir up controversy with his use of the term eugenics as applied to an institution believed to help women today. This does not undercut social issues entirely – the public’s desire to help underprivileged workers cannot be counted out – but indicates that prejudice was not, in fact, the one reason for establishing a minimum wage, as Leonard would have readers believe. But neither does the male breadwinner theory exclude women from receiving the benefits of the minimum wage legislation, weakening the argument for social factors as the main determinant.

Modern economic modeling implies that for the Fair Labor Standards Act vote, a congressperson’s decision was considerably determined by his or her political leanings as much or more than the real economic factors in their regions. This idea is furthered by proof that the South did, in fact, have a different political system in the North, and that said system affected the outcome of the FLSA vote. Political factors can also tie into the economic argument; the perception that wage floors would aid Depression recovery could help create the idea that the US political system was doing something to fix the ailing American economy. Despite the presence of social and economic factors, the impact of political issues in the establishment of the United States minimum wage makes them much more significant.

References

Effect of minimum wage on women's earnings in Rhode Island. (1938). Monthly Labor Review. 47, 551-555.

Fleck, Robert K. (2002). Democratic opposition to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The Journal of Economic History. 62(1), 25-54.

Fleck, Robert K. (2004). Democratic opposition to the Fair Labor Standards Act: Reply to Seltzer. The Journal of Economic History. 62(1), 231-235.

Grossman, Jonathan (1978). Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938: maximum struggle for a minimum wage. Monthly Labor Review. 101(6), 22-30.

Ingalls, Robert P. (1974). New York and the minimum-wage movement, 1933-1937. Labor History. 15(2), 179-198.

Leonard, Thomas C. (2005). Protecting family and race: The progressive case for regulating women's work. American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 64(3), 757-791.

Mutari, Ellen (2004). Brothers and breadwinners: Legislating living wages in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. Review of Social Economy. 62(2), 129-148.

Samuel, Howard D (2000). Troubled passage: The labor movement and the Fair Labor Standards Act. Monthly Labor Review. 123(12), 32-37.

Seltzer, Andrew J. (2004). Democratic opposition to the Fair Labor Standards Act: A comment on Fleck. The Journal of Economic History. 64(1), 226-230.

Seltzer, Andrew J. (1995). The political economy of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The Journal of Political Economy. 103(6), 1302-1342.

Silver, Stephen, & Sumner, Scott (1995). Nominal and real wage cyclicality during the interwar period. Southern Economic Journal. 61(3), 588-601.

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Overview | Early Minimum Wages | The FLSA - Reasons and Conflict | Conclusion & References