The United States Congress adopted the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. Congress created the minimum wage toward the end of the Depression era to ensure a "minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency and general well-being for workers." (Fair Labor Standard Act, 1938) In 1993 some 4.8 million people worked for minimum wage or less. (Mishel, Bernstein & Rasell Table 7) According to the Department of Labor, nearly 6.45 percent of the labor force is earning minimum wages. (Tannenbaum and Gupta B1) By having minimum wage laws the government is trying to ensure that eve

A raise in minimum wages does not insure that low-income consumers will not be at a disadvantage. If minimum wage is raised then people are put out of work in the process of downsizing or replaced by more efficient machines. A few do make more money but that extra money is also taxed and businesses will have less capital to expand and hire more workers. Without the minimum wage raises businesses will expand because they have more capital. Along with this expansion businesses will hire more people and create more jobs, thus putting more money into the economy, which will reduce inflation and keep prices on items relatively low. If businesses can not expand and can not afford to fire people then the businesses will raise their prices. The raised prices will hurt people working for minimum wage. Therefore when minimum wages are raised all the price of goods are going up so the consumer maybe making more money but is also paying more money for goods. Simply, the minimum wage floor is not a way to help the poor Americans.

The preponderance of evidence indicates that the problem for black teenagers has become even worse. In the early 1940's, black teenagers seemed to have few problems finding work. The jobless rate for the black youths was less than that of white teenagers but by 1949 things had altered. The jobless rate for the black youths was 2.8 times the national rate. By 1971, that rate was 3.2 percent and by 1977 the rate for blacks youths had reached 40 percent. (Goodman & Dolan 171) President Lyndon Johnson stated, "The question is not whether the minimum wage should be increased but when and by how much." (Cullen 32) In a survey that was conducted of 19 and 20 year olds at Ohio University, 60% of the students said the minimum wage should not be raised. The reasons that were given against raising the minimum wage is that it increases inflation and more money is paid for taxes. The 40% that said minimum wage should be increased gave the reason that it helps the low-income families that are on welfare get off of welfare. (Survey)

Bottom 20% by income $18,301 $17,940 -2.0%

The median income of African-American households is less than two-thirds that of whites and one reason is that African-Americans have less education. Only 13 percent of African-American adults have college degrees in 1995, compared to 24 percent of whites; and 74 percent had high school degrees, compared to 83 percent for whites.(Textbook) The lack of income and education has led African-Americans to spend more of their money on necessities such as cosmetics and toiletries, while whites spend more on medical care and entertainment.

Average Income Average Income Percentage Change

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Approximate Word count = 2440
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)