Story by Benjamin Regan
Contributor
Illustration by Martin Walsh
Illustrator
Since the introduction of a federal minimum wage in 1938 through the Fair Labor Standard Act, a time when businesses would exploit their workers with less than $1 (in today’s dollars) hourly wages, politicians have quarreled over what the appropriate minimum wage should be. The graph of minimum wages in the United States since 1938 is going up, though when adjusted for inflation, it is actually decreasing. Furthermore, the graph is sporadic and unpredictable: there are long stretches of time where the minimum wage remains unaltered, and then rapid, random spikes.
That 1938 law passed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt didn’t set a precedent on how the minimum wage should be raised. If the minimum wage was to be raised, it would require a new law passed by Congress. Congress has passed new laws at random intervals of time, making the overall system unpredictable.
Businesses, starkly on the contrary to their employees, are against raises to the minimum wage. Large and small businesses alike often lobby incessantly against any elevation to the minimum wage, because raising it cuts into businesses’ profits. Businesses would of course prefer to keep minimum wages as low as possible, but they do struggle to account for fluctuations in minimum wage. It is not that businesses are incapable of paying a higher minimum wage, but rather that they are unprepared when called upon to do so.
For instance, from...
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