Relevance?

The Fair Labor Standards Act has a great legacy in the United States. It developed child labor laws, overtime payments, and a minimum wage policy that has lasted for decades. But since its development in 1938, there have been a lot of discussions over what is considered fair minimum wage. More recently in the US, there have been fast food strikes by employees petitioning for a raise in minimum wage salaries at fast food restaurants. Minimum wage is a rising topic in discussions among Americans, and it all began with the Fair Labor Standards Act.

How does minimum wage affect the United States today? When it was first developed, it gave opportunity and money to many people who were not being paid what they should have been. There were thousands of workers who were putting in hours of hard labor, and their hourly payment was not worthy. The FLSA created an equal basis for all non-farming jobs. In today's society, there are rising problems with minimum wage policies. There are many people who are paid minimum wage that deserve more. 

Taco Bell Workers protesting

Since the development of minimum wage in 1938 during the Great Depression, the economy has significantly picked up, inflation has risen, and so has the minimum wage. But there have been many people in different industries that are discussing whether or not the current United States minimum wage is sufficient for living. In the fast food trade, there have been strikes to increase minimum wage for workers because they believe it will be an incentive for better quality of work, while not being threatened by anti-Union sentiments. The strikes have begun to sweep across the country, spreading the message that minimum wage is not always as beneficial as it might seem to be. "The protests have expanded greatly since November 2012, when 200 fast-food workers engaged in a one-day strike at more than 20 restaurants in New York City, the first such walkout in the history of the nation’s fast-food industry" (Greenhouse, NY Times, 2013). 

In addition to the fast food strikes that are sweeping across the country, many states are reconsidering the minimum wage per state. In Massachusetts recently, legislators have been discussing increasing minimum wage for workers from $8 an hour to $11 an hour. Although Massachusetts already has one of the highest minimum wage rates in the country, many legislators believe that an increase in minimum wage (and an adjustment in inflation) will really help low-income workers lives better lives. On the flip-side, a raise in minimum wage might lead to job loss for many workers because the employers can no longer afford to pay their employees the new rate. 

Minimum wage throughout the United States is constantly a discussed topic because it impacts millions of workers across the country. There are many people who believe that they are not being paid enough for the work that they do, and other people believe that the work that is being done is not worth more that minimum wage. 

There are many states that have a higher minimum wage than Massachusetts, but Massachusetts is one of the only states that might actually change minimum wage rates. I predict that within the next ten years, the conversation revolving around insufficient wage rates will rise, and more people will be paid at a higher rate. 

Readers Theatre Script

September 19^th, 1937

Ever since I was a young child, I have been working. My name is Grace Smith, and I am a young and loving mother and wife. My family and I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and we have been struggling terribly for the last fifteen years or so. I grew up in a small home in Western Massachusetts, but recently moved to the city with my family in hope that my husband could get a new job. This so called economic depression that is happening right now has been such a burden on my poor family. My husband was laid off from his job at the mill, and we somehow found enough saved up money to move to Brooklyn. I am so proud of my son Charles though. He is such a smart and loving boy that he told me that he will try to find a job in the area so we can maybe “live in a nice house just like the people we see in the movies.” Children are always being hired by factory managers because they can be paid a lot less than an adult would be. I would know: I worked in a mill in a town in Massachusetts for 18 years, and barely got enough money to pay for a pack of gum each week. But I think something exciting is about to happen in the United States soon. I’ve been seeing articles in the paper recently about the government trying to lift the country back up on its feet. They want to help people get their jobs back, or even develop new ways for people to work. Roosevelt, our beloved president, has been telling us on his radio program that they want to make a new standard of working where children under a certain age will not be allowed to work, there will be a required minimum wage for employees, and there will be a legal limit on the amount of work a person could do in one day. That way, they will have to pay extra for the extra hours that a worker puts in in a day. Roosevelt wants to name this law the Fair Labor Standards Act, and that is probably won’t be enacted until next year. This law might really change my family’s life. I am constantly worrying about Charles’ safety out at the factories, so now he wont be allowed to work and be paid nothing for it. My husband will hopefully be able to find a job in the meantime, and eventually be paid fairly for the hard work that he has done. But I did hear that people working on farms, which are mostly the Negros, are not going to be included under this law for whatever reason. All I can do is cross my fingers that his law gets passed so my family can maybe find some peace of mind.

           

50 YEARS LATER

Hi there! My name is Samuel, and I am my father Charles’s son, and my Grandma Grace’s third grandson. Grandma Grace used to always tell me stories about how she grew up during the Great Depression, which I learned all about at school. I never realized how important the New Deal policies were to working people at the time, even the Fair Labor Standards Act. I take it for granted that children are not working factory jobs and that I am getting paid minimum wage at the local grocery store. But at the time, my grandfather and dad were treated unfairly. Because the FLSA is so important to economic structure in the United States, its still in place today, and I’ve come to appreciate what many people have taken for granted.