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Leah Harwell
Christie Bogle
English 1010
4/15/15
The Federal Minimum Wage: Should It Be Raised?
The only thing we have to fear, is fear itselfnameless, unreasoning, unjustified
terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. (Rosenman) Franklin
Delano Roosevelt famously addressed these words of reassurance to the American public during
his Inauguration in 1938. I had mistakenly attributed this quote as referencing Americas
impending involvement in World War I rather than referring to his intention to enact the Fair
Labors Standard Act, or FLSA. This bill was designed to bolster the economy and the U.S.
middle class, set standards for safer working conditions, and a federal minimum wage.
(Roosevelt) The idea of passing an act to impose a federal minimum wage was as contentious a
subject then as it is now to increase the minimum wage.
America at that time was a capitalists dream. J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, and John
D. Rockefeller were worth a combined total of a trillion dollars in todays money. Their
combined net worth is more than our forty wealthiest people put together today. (HIS)
Employees of their companies General Electric, U.S. Steel, and Standard Oil Company by
contrast were lucky to make one hundred dollars a month; income even then below the poverty
line. Workers, including children, spent long days toiling in dangerous conditions. The steel
industry alone had an estimated 12% annual fatality rate. There were no laws forbidding child
labor, no forty hour work week, no overtime, no paid time off, and no guarantee of a livable

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wage. Roosevelt fought hard for years to change all of this despite staggering opposition, even
from the US Supreme Court.
Had the federal minimum wage increased through the decades commensurately with
worker productivity, the hourly wage should be $21.72 instead of $7.25 according to the Center
for Economic and Policy Research. Even if the wage had increased to coincide with inflation, the
hourly sum should be $10.52 today found the same study. (Fairchild) (Elwell)

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Income inequality is higher today than it was in 1928 according to Emmanuel Saez,
Economics professor at UC Berkley. His research shows Americas top 1% of families receive
22.5% of gross dollars, while 90% of the population receive less than 50%. (Desilver) These
figures reflect a divide in income greater than when Roosevelt passed the Fair Labors Standard
Act.
A little more than three quarters of Americans, Republicans and Democrats alike, support
raising the federal minimum wage to $9 or 10 per hour. The reason the minimum wage is not
automatically indexed to inflation is due to the popularity of raising the wage. Many politicians
prefer to raise the minimum wage themselves through legislation to garner public opinion and
political clout (Dube).
Those against raising the current federal minimum wage state the increased wage would
make it more difficult for low-skilled workers to find jobs, or that their jobs would be replaced
by kiosks or self-scanning checkouts (Furchtgott-Roth). Studies of neighboring counties that
crossed state lines show an increase in minimum wage affects employment in restaurant or
retail industries by much less than one percent according to Arindrajit Dube, professor of
economics at the University of Massachussetts. This means loss of jobs does not in fact coincide
with an increase in the minimum wage.
A free market explanation is also provided as a reason for not increasing the minimum
wage. This argument contends that the US job market is a meritocracy, and workers are paid
what they are worth. Workers who protest wages that are at or below poverty level are often
labeled as lazy, or are said to be seeking a hand out.
Another reason opponents do not recommend an increase in the federal minimum wage is
the idea that all workers will be treated the same, regardless of age or familial status, so it wont

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necessarily help those in poverty. They recommend a tax credit for childless workers, lowering
tax penalties on married couples with children, and creating a tax payer funded wage subsidy for
minimum wage earners (Pethokoukis).
I vehemently disagree with placing the burden of a wage subsidy on the American
taxpayer, who are already subsidizing minimum wage workers in the form of food stamps,
Medicaid and housing. One Walmart store that pays its employees the federal minimum wage
can cost the city it is in $900,000 to $1.75 million dollars a year in (OConnor).
Proponents of a federal minimum wage increase believe costs associated with Medicaid,
food stamps, and other forms of assistance will go down as workers will now be able to pay for
these services themselves. (Reich).
The arguments for and against raising the minimum wage will soon be answered, as
Seattle raised its minimum wage to $15 per hour last year. The increase in hourly pay is
staggered over a few years so it will be some time before we see the results of the change. Im
hoping Seattles model for change will be adopted on a federal level.

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Works Cited
Rosenman, Samuel. The Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Volume Two: The Year of
Crisis, 1933. New York : Random House, 1938. Print
Roosevelt, Public Papers, VI (May 24, 1937), pp. 214-16. Print
When One Ends, Another Begins. The Men Who Built America. History Channel HIS.
National. 2012. Television
Chambers, John. The Big Switch: Justice Roberts and The Minimum Wage Cases. Labor
History, Vol. 10 pp. 54-58. 1969. Print
Roosevelt, Public Papers, IV (May 29, 1935), pp. 198-221
Roosevelt, Public Papers, VI (Oct. 4, 1937, Oct. 12, 1937, Nov. 15, 1937), pp. 404, 428-29 Print
Fairchild, Caroline. Minimum Wage Would Be $21.72 If It Kept Pace With Increases In
Productivity: Study. The Huffington Post. 2013. Print
Desilver, Drew. U.S. income inequality, on rise for decades, is now highest since 1928. Pew
Research Center. December 2013. Print.
Dube, Arindrajit. The Minimum We Can Do. The New York Times. November 2013. Print.
Furchtgott-Roth, Diana. Higher Minimum Wage Hurts Low-Skill Workers in the Long Run.
The New York Times. June 2014. Print.
Pethokoukis, James. Raising the Minimum wage Wont Fight Poverty. The New York Times.
June 2014. Print
OConnor, Clare. Report: Walmart Workers Cost Taxpayers $6.2 Billion in Public Assistance.
Forbes. April 2014. Print
Reich, Robert. A $15 Minimum Wage Can Help Overcome the New Low-wage Economy. The
New York Times. June 2014. Print