Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Minimum Wage in America Since 1938

CNN has provided a graph of the minimum wage in America going back to 1938 and it's adjusted for 2015 dollars to demonstrate the buying power of the minimum wage evenly through the period.  (CNN: Minimum Wage Since 1938)

The summation is the minimum wage at its lowest when measurement began in 1938, when FDR established the existence of a minimum wage with the Fair Labor Standards Act.  This reached a peak in 1968 when the wage was $10.68 (in 2015 dollars).  The buying power of the minimum wage has been steadily falling ever since 1968 and now is at $7.25 or about 67% of what it was back in '68.

When the GOP screams about how increasing the minimum wage will break the economy, it's absolute flaming rubbish and is just another excuse for the rich to get richer and the poor to stay poor.  It's parasitism and it's a national disgrace.


The Fair Standards Labor Practice was made law because the Supreme Court had been consistently shooting down any type of a minimum wage by calling it a violation of the Constitution and had been doing this since 1912.

From the above, we can see that left to themselves the rich absolutely will not negotiate fair labor contracts as the minimum wage in 1938 was, in 2015 dollars, $4.25 an hour and that must have been an improvement over what workers had been getting.  So that gives the precise image of what the rich and their corporations will do unless explicitly forced to commit to fairness as is now the case.

However, the GOP, with little resistance from Democrats, has been steadily whittling the value of the minimum wage ever since 1968.

Left to themselves, the corporations will keep workers in penury and now, with the roaring assistance of the GOP, the corporations will ensure workers stay that way.

The rich and their corporations are the same entities which sent children to work in coal mines.  Trusting them to show any vestige of morality is not in any way realistic.  They're trying to do effectively the same thing today because, when the parents are broke, the kid might as well be in a coal mine.

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