Minimum wage is defined as the lowest wage permitted by law or by a special agreement, such as one with a labor union. In 1912, Massachusetts set a law that recommended minimum wages for women and children, because often they were paid very little or not paid at all for the work they did. Within eight years, at least thirteen U.S. states would pass minimum wage laws. The United States Supreme Court consistently rejected compulsory minimum wage laws. The laws were considered unconstitutional because they interfered with the ability of employers to freely negotiate pay contracts with their employees. The first attempt at a national minimum wage was in 1933, when the National Industrial Recovery Act, enforced a $0.25 per hour minimum wage. However, in 1935 court case Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, the United States Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional, and the minimum wage …show more content…
Darby Lumber Co., the Supreme Court kept the Fair Labor Standards Act, insinuating that Congress had the power under the Commerce Clause to regulate employment conditions. In 1938 the United States government passed a law called the Fair Labors Act, which enforced the minimum wage but also was the first time employers were forced to pay the employees for overtime in certain jobs. At the time the law passed, the country’s first minimum wage was $0.25 per hour. President Franklin Roosevelt saw the act as one of the most important pieces of the New Deal after the creation of Social Security and said it was “the most far-reaching, farsighted program for the benefit of workers ever adopted in this or any other country.” The Fair Labor Standards Act has been amended total of two times, and minimum wage has mostly increased after every few years, though President Obama stated in his State of the Union address, that minimum wage had fallen far behind inflation. The minimum wage would have to be increased to make up for the value lost to