The Economics Of Legal Minimum Wages
by Simon Rottenberg /
1981 / English / PDF
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The Fair Labor Standards Act was adopted by the Congress in 1938. The act has been amended a number of times since then, most recently in 197, Its main provision is to establish, for the employments it covers, legal minimum wages. No employer may legally pay, in covered employments, less than $3.10 per hour, and that sum will ratchet, by law, to $3.35 per hour at the beginning of 1981. The federal minimum wage law is complemented by state minimum wage laws.
A very large proportion of private-sector nonsupervisory employees is employed in occupations that are covered by minimum wage laws. Of 59 million such workers in 1977 , 52 million were covered by the FairLabor Standards Act and an additional 5 million by state minimum wage laws.
