The minimum wage has been legally mandated at the federal level in the United States in 1938 under Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. The general concept of minimum wage was by increasing the hourly wages of workers, their income would increase and thus making it easier for workers to afford necessities to maintain their life (Fairchild 31). The politics of the minimum wage have helped push employers to help the working poor by forcing them to pay more. While a federal minimum wage has been mandated, and over the course of years it has increased with respect to inflation, states have been able to adopt their own minimum wages that are above the federally mandated wage. What determines these states to adopt wages above the federal level? Only eight states have wages above the federal minimum wage, so …show more content…
Poverty is another goal the minimum wage has been argued to battle. The poverty line is seen as the minimum level that one needs to survive financially in the country, which is consistent with the goal of minimum wages setting to provide recipients with access to necessities. The minimum wage is a political battle just as much as it is an economic concern, and states adopting higher minimum wages is one way the politics have fought back at the conflict of poverty. Studies have been done to help explain and determine what influences a state to raise its minimum wage. Waltman and Pittman hypothesized that state minimum wages were driven by a state’s wealth, how much control Democrats a state (since Democrats favor a left wing approach), and the ideological leanings of the citizens all positively related to states (Waltman and Pittman). Their findings found that the ideologies of a state were the only significant factor in determining a state’s