Why Is There a Minimum Wage?

↓ More info and sources below ↓

The Minimum Wage is a wildly important and contentious aspect of modern economic life. But whether you believe it needs to go up or be eliminated altogether there’s an important question to ask, why does it exist at all?

Written and Hosted By: Danielle Bainbridge
Graphics By: Noelle Smith
Edited By: Linda Huang and Mike Petrow
Fact Check: Sarah Edwards

Works Cited:

Minimum Wages by David Neumark and William L. Wascher

[kinglee]

I think we are missing a big part of this story. I think they should cover the history of tipping. Which kind of ties into this subject.

[kernelpanick]

Suggestion: The history of Middle Names and where they came from. My girlfriend and I have been arguing about this for days and cant seem to find enough information :)

[ilmanil]

minimum wage was done protect the organized workers from competition

[lylyluvda]

So Im a big history nerd and this is probably my favorite channel atm.

Keep it up!

[ZestyCrab]

Suggestion: Why do we have the Electoral College?

[geekedup]

Can you do a video on the history of the Black Panthers and Chicano Movement since you brought up California's farmworker strike and Ceaser Chavez plus its National Hispanic Heritage Month Please!!!

[drewforchic]

EVEN IF WE AIN'T GOT HATS OR BADGES
WE"RE A UNION JUST BY SAYIN
AND THE WORLD WILL KNOW!

God I love Newsies!.

[lizrose]

My city just raised minimum wage to $15/hr now

[DerrickDurden]

0:58 Should really add prison labourers to that list of minimum wage excludies.

[jjtiojohn]

Suggestion: can you do the origins of the war on drugs?

[therealnoodles]

It was supposed to protect the workers. Back in the day, the employer had more bargaining power than the workers. It was a time of great innovation and most wealth were created by the capital owners and employers. Thus they had more bargaining power and contracts tended to be one sided. It was a solution to exploitation and more bargaining power for the workers.

[SuperGreatSphinx]

Modern minimum wage laws trace their origin to the Ordinance of Labourers (1349), which was a decree by King Edward III that set a maximum wage for laborers in medieval England.

King Edward III, who was a wealthy landowner, was dependent, like his lords, on serfs to work the land.

In the autumn of 1348, the Black Plague reached England and decimated the population.

The severe shortage of labor caused wages to soar and encouraged King Edward III to set a wage ceiling.

Subsequent amendments to the ordinance, such as the Statute of Labourers (1351), increased the penalties for paying a wage above the set rates.

While the laws governing wages initially set a ceiling on compensation, they were eventually used to set a living wage.

An amendment to the Statute of Labourers in 1389 effectively fixed wages to the price of food.

As time passed, the Justice of the Peace, who was charged with setting the maximum wage, also began to set formal minimum wages.

The practice was eventually formalized with the passage of the Act Fixing a Minimum Wage in 1604 by King James I for workers in the textile industry.

By the early 19th century, the Statutes of Labourers was repealed as the increasingly capitalistic United Kingdom embraced laissez-faire policies which disfavored regulations of wages (whether upper or lower limits).

The subsequent 19th century saw significant labor unrest affect many industrial nations.

As trade unions were decriminalized during the century, attempts to control wages through collective agreement were made.

It was not until the 1890s that the first modern legislative attempts to regulate minimum wages were seen in New Zealand and Australia.

The movement for a minimum wage was initially focused on stopping sweatshop labor and controlling the proliferation of sweatshops in manufacturing industries.

The sweatshops employed large numbers of women and young workers, paying them what were considered to be substandard wages.

The sweatshop owners were thought to have unfair bargaining power over their employees, and a minimum wage was proposed as a means to make them pay fairly.

Over time, the focus changed to helping people, especially families, become more self-sufficient.

In the United States, the late 19th-century ideas for favoring a minimum wage also coincided with the eugenics movement.

As a consequence, some economists at the time, including Royal Meeker and Henry Rogers Seager, argued for the adoption of a minimum wage not only to support the worker, but to support their desired semi- and skilled laborers while forcing the undesired workers (including the idle, immigrants, women, racial minorities, and the disabled) out of the labor market.

The result, over the longer term, would be to limit the nondesired workers' ability to earn money and have families, and thereby, remove them from the economists' ideal society.

[deshaunbrandford]

Suggestion: The history of Language Translation. I have always wondered how the idea of translating one word into various languages began.

[CT-ycgd]

If there weren't a minimum wage, you can bet your ass that employers would exploit that and give you 2/hr and tell you, you are lucky you are even getting that since you have a job.

[cuongvitruong]

I'm not a protestor type at all, I'm sorry, I was illegally used to protest for the minimum wage in the USA since the year 1999. Please leave me alone and stop illegally using me to protest. You better off hiring someone else who actually have a desire and passion to protest for you. Thank you in advance.

[fayecoldren-sallee]

Why aren't eyes and teeth already part of healthcare, Seriously, who TF decided that healthcare doesn't include 2 very important parts of the body?

[Dennis-ncvw]

Good question, I live in Austin Texas where the minimum wage is $7.25 and even Taco Bell is paying $15.50. This "race to the bottom" stuff is nonsense. As long as there is competition, which is already mandated by law, there needn't be a minimum wage.

[celtgunn]

Can you do some episodes of the history of farming in the midwest?

We grow wheat, peas, some years canola, thinking about corn next year, grass hay, alfalfa & black angus. Here in SW North Dakota. The family has been here for many years. The Original home is still on the property. 😊

[ionz]

Take note fellow Americans, we're about to have to fight this one all over again...

[Darynifiction]

I understand the bias, but to don't mention the fact that millions of people moved to the cities to work in factories because they was anyway earning a lot more than being farmes, isn't exactly honest. It just portray the capitalists as greedy bastards without informing people of the reality of life in the 19/20th century. As for the fact that the fascist party in Italy was instrumental in creating the 40 hours week, stop child labor forcing scolarization, and giving benefits to workers (parental leave, recreational paid vacations etc) half a decade before Americans move the first steps in the same direction. Yeah, fascism is bad, but the facts are facts even if you prefer to depict the image of workers strikes fighting the greedy capitalist more than giving facts. I feel a wishy washy SJW vibe that I can't relate to any other PBS channels. Could be nice to just have raw facts, and uncomfortable truths.