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In the United States, a minimum wage refers to the lowest wage that an employer can pay a worker according to federal, state, local, or tribal law. Regardless of state law, US employers must pay at least the federal minimum wage to workers whose employment circumstances meet certain criteria. These criteria have evolved since the federal minimum wage was first established by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938. In 2007 lawmakers created legislation to gradually raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 per hour, which had been in effect since 1997, to $7.25 per hour by 2009, where it remained as of early 2021. President Joe Biden and many Democratic lawmakers advocate a higher federal minimum wage of at least $15.00 per hour to keep up with inflation and to create a living wage that would lift many workers out of poverty. Most Republican lawmakers and some business leaders disagree with this approach, stating that the cost of living varies from state to state and that it would be detrimental to small businesses.

For some trades, industry-specific minimum wages are established by professional associations, and individual companies sometimes institute their own minimum wage policies. Minimum wages set by nongovernmental organizations are usually higher than those set by law. In May 2021, thirty states and the District of Columbia had minimum wages set higher than the federal requirement, while eighteen others had matched the federal requirements of $7.25 per hour or had no minimum wage state legislation in place. State minimum wages in Georgia and Wyoming were lower than the federal requirement for employers not covered by the FLSA, such as business with less than $500,000 in gross sales annually or with fewer than two employees and not engaged in interstate commerce. As reported by the US Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), approximately 865,000 workers earned less than the federal minimum wage in 2020, while 247,000 workers were paid at the federal minimum rate of $7.25; these 1.1 million workers represented 1.5 percent of hourly workers that year. This group does not include employees earning state minimum wages that are higher than the federal requirement.

Since the earliest proposals for a minimum wage law, employers have argued that wage requirements violate a company's right to conduct business without government interference. In response to calls for a federal rate of $15.00 per hour, many economists have expressed concern that raising the minimum wage may adversely affect employment, particularly among young and unskilled workers. Alternatively, other economists have argued that a higher minimum wage would improve the economy by granting greater purchasing power to low-wage workers. They note that these workers often reintroduce additional earnings into the economy by purchasing goods and services, whereas their more affluent counterparts are more likely to remove additional income from the economy through savings. Proponents of raising the wage underscore that minimum wages are set to ensure employers provide fair compensation, though many minimum-wage workers still cannot afford basic necessities, such as food, housing, and health care.

Pros and Cons of Raising the Federal Minimum Wage to $15.00 per Hour

Raising the minimum wage would provide much-needed financial support to low-income workers.

Providing workers with higher wages leads to increased consumer spending, as low-wage workers typically spend a greater percentage of their earnings than more affluent workers do.

Wage increases can improve morale, worker productivity, and company loyalty, which will ultimately translate into higher profits for the employer.

Raising the minimum wage may lead employers to hire fewer unskilled workers, teenagers, and other candidates who may not justify the increased cost.

Wage increases may lead to workforce reductions including layoffs and hiring freezes. Employers may put additional pressure on their remaining employees and expect more work from them.

Employers may pass the cost of paying higher wages onto their customers, resulting in higher consumer prices.

Legislative History

Lawmakers in Massachusetts passed the country's first minimum wage law in 1912 to reduce child labor and deter working women from supplementing the lower wages paid by their employers with prostitution. The law applied only to women and minors and required employers to pay a wage that would cover living expenses. Several state and local governments followed the example of Massachusetts and enacted their own minimum wage laws. A 1918 law approving a minimum wage for women and minors in the District of Columbia was challenged and brought before the US Supreme Court in Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923). The ruling deemed a federally mandated minimum wage unconstitutional and led to several state minimum wage laws being changed.

The economic ravages of the Great Depression (1929-1939) and the publicized abuses of industrial labor further spurred activist interest in establishing a federal minimum wage. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) introduced wage guidelines as part of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA), but NIRA was overturned by the Supreme Court in A.L.A. Schechter Poultry v. United States (1935), a case unrelated to minimum wage. The Supreme Court revisited the issue in 1937 when it ruled in favor of Elsie Parrish, who had filed suit against the West Coast Hotel Company for failing to pay her Washington State's minimum wage.

These early efforts to establish a federal minimum wage and improve labor conditions were largely led by secretary of labor Frances Perkins (1882-1965), the first woman appointed to the US cabinet. Before joining the Roosevelt administration, Perkins had been an active leader in New York's labor movement. Perkins helped craft the FLSA, which, after much debate and revision, originally covered only workers in certain industries for companies of a certain size that engaged in interstate commerce. Historians have criticized the law for disproportionately favoring unionized white workers at the expense of minority workers who were often excluded from unions and forced to accept lower wages than their white counterparts.

Amending the Minimum Wage

In the second half of the twentieth century, US Congress made notable adjustments to federal minimum wage requirements at least once per decade. The adjustment passed under the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 raised the federal rate to $7.25 per hour, where it remained as of April 2021. The act included nearly $5 billion in tax breaks for small businesses to help them adjust to increased labor costs.

The Minimum Wage Fairness Act, introduced to the Senate in 2013 by Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), proposed gradually raising the minimum wage to $10.10, then tying subsequent increases to the inflation rate to ensure low-wage earners could keep up with rising living costs. It did not pass. Similar bills have been introduced multiple times, including three versions of the Raise the Wage Act. The first version, introduced in 2015, proposed raising the federal minimum wage to $12.00 per hour by 2020. The second, which proposed gradually increasing the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour, was introduced in 2017 and again in 2019. In 2021 lawmakers brought a third version of the Raise the Wage Act forward as the US economy struggled with the fallout of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This version also sought gradual increases that would bring the federal minimum wage to $15.00 per hour by June 2025 but included provisions that would enact further increases at a rate proportional to corresponding rises in the median hourly wages earned by all US workers.

While the federal rate remained unchanged, the minimum wages in more than twenty states went up in 2021. As of 2021, eighteen states and the District of Columbia had tied their minimum wages to the consumer price index (CPI), the employment cost index (ECI), or the personal consumption expenditures price index (PCEPI), all of which link wages to changes in the costs of goods and services.

Though the minimum wage provision of the FLSA covers a large portion of the labor force, exceptions remain. Occupations commonly exempt from the minimum wage provision of the FLSA include farmworkers, seasonal amusement park workers, and salaried employees whose incomes meet a certain threshold. Employers are also permitted to pay teenagers only $4.25 per hour during their first ninety consecutive days and to create exemptions for apprenticeships and internships. Additionally, federal law does not require employers to pay tipped employees the full federal minimum wage based on the assumption that tips enable workers to earn more than the minimum wage. However, the federal minimum wage afforded to tipped employees has remained at $2.13 since 1991. Though most states have adopted legislation that requires employers to pay tipped employees more than the federal requirements, fifteen states and Puerto Rico still permitted employers to pay tipped workers $2.13 per hour as of 2021.

Critical Thinking Questions

Do you support raising the federal minimum wage to $15.00 per hour? Why or why not?

Why do you think tipped workers have such a low minimum wage? Do you think it is fair? Why or why not?

Under what circumstances, if any, do you think employers should be exempt from paying workers the federal minimum wage? Explain your answer.

Campaigns for a Living Wage

Several organizations, activists, and lawmakers have pushed for a $15.00 minimum wage. The idea first gained widespread traction and public support as a result of the Fight for $15 campaign, which began in November 2012 when fast-food workers in New York City organized a walkout strike as part of a demand for higher wages. Since the initial protest, the movement has grown into a campaign involving minimum wage workers across many industries and workers in cities throughout the United States, Canada, and other advanced economies. Fast-food worker and prominent member of the Fight for $15 campaign Terrence Wise testified before Congress in February 2019 in support of the second iteration of the Raise the Wage Act.

Proponents of raising the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour contend that workers must earn a livable wage or living wage, or a wage that ensures full-time workers can earn enough money to cover essential expenses such as housing, food, health care, childcare, and transportation. In 2020 the US Census Bureau set the average poverty threshold for an individual at $12,760 and for a four-person household at $26,200. A minimum wage worker who works forty hours per week for fifty-two weeks will earn $15,080, putting their monthly income only $193 per month more than the poverty level, assuming they take no time off during the year. Many people do not consider $7.25 a living wage, especially in urban areas where living costs tend to be significantly higher.

Proposals to raise the federal minimum wage face the challenge of setting a baseline level that is appropriate and fair for the entire country. Economists have criticized both federal and state minimum wage requirements on the grounds that they apply "one-wage-fits-all" solutions to heterogeneous local economies. Noting that living expenses vary significantly between states and among cities within those states, skeptical economists also warn that requiring rural employers to pay the same wages as their urban counterparts would adversely affect employment in nonurban areas, which are often hit hardest by unemployment. Some economists worry that increased wages will trigger an inflationary effect that will raise the cost of goods and services, effectively canceling any benefits to those earning low wages. Additional concerns suggest that raising the minimum wage may adversely affect employment rates, particularly among young and unskilled workers.

Raising the federal minimum wage could influence where immigrants choose to settle. According to a 2020 analysis by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, research shows that immigrants tend to migrate to states with lower minimum wage requirements, as employers in states with higher minimum wages cannot afford to hire them. The Cato Institute cited a Congressional Budget Office estimate that projected a net loss of 1.3 million jobs if the 2021 version of the Raise the Wage Act became law.

Other economists cite several advantages of increasing minimum wages. For example, a higher minimum wage could improve the economy by increasing the purchasing power of low-wage workers. Proponents of this viewpoint note that these workers tend to cycle their earnings through the economy by purchasing goods and services at higher rates than those earning higher wages. Raising the minimum wage would give these consumers more money to spend, theoretically benefitting the economy's overall strength and offsetting any harm caused by rising wages. Further, studies suggest that higher minimum wages may reduce crime, mitigate income inequality, and increase overall economic productivity. Some analyses also point out that people of color and women are likely to benefit the most from an increase in the minimum wage, because they make up a disproportionate share of underpaid and lower-income workers.

In February 2021 Democratic lawmakers attempted to include a mechanism to raise the federal minimum wage to $15.00 per hour in their $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill. The wage hike had strong support among some Democrats but was ultimately struck from the final version of the bill after Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that the proposal violated the upper chamber's procedural rules. These developments indicated that bipartisan cooperation would be necessary to advance meaningful reforms on the federal minimum wage. A CNBC analysis published in February 2021 determined that a $15.00 minimum wage would still leave a family of four unable to afford all basic necessities in any US state, leaving some lawmakers to call for future proposals to set minimum wage levels even higher. Some economists have also expressed concerns that high levels of inflation, brought on by the soaring debt levels caused by COVID-19 relief efforts, will lead to rising costs of goods and services. If this occurs, low-wage earners would be heavily affected, as the purchasing power of their earnings would quickly erode.

Source Citation

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In the United States, a minimum wage refers to the lowest wage that an employer can pay a worker according to federal, state, local, or tribal law. Regardless of state law, US employers must pay at least the federal minimum wage to workers whose employment circumstances meet certain criteria.

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Oceans and Climate!

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Humans have made the oceans more stable, and the result will be more extreme weather and the acceleration of climate change.

You may have heard the phrase "hot air rises". And it is true: when you heat up air, the warmed air wants to rise, like a hot-air balloon. The rising motion is caused by the changing density of the air, a process scientists refer to as buoyancy.

The same thing is true in the oceans. Warm water is less dense than cold waters. In oceans, water tends to stratify, with warmer, less dense water sitting atop colder, more dense water. We refer to this as a "stable" configuration.

Sometimes the waters are not stable. For example, the upper waters of the ocean can suddenly become heavier. This causes the water to fall from the surface towards the ocean floor. Waters near the ocean floor are then brought up to the surface where mixing occurs.

Not only does water move up and down in the ocean, but currents flow around the world horizontally as well.

The upward and downward motions are common in the North Atlantic, the north Pacific, and in the Indian and Southern oceans. It turns out these water currents have major effects on the entire ocean, as well as the weather.

How would ocean water near the surface suddenly become more heavy? It is to do with the saltiness of the water. The saltier the water is, the more dense it is. Fresher waters are less dense. When warm water forms the top level of the ocean, evaporation of liquid water into the air removes water molecules and increases the saltiness of the water, which then causes the water to fall and mixing to occur. So mixing is affected by both temperature and saltiness.

A new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change, of which I was one of the authors, used new techniques to analyse ocean waters using a large collection of data from around the world.

The paper shows that the stratification of the oceans - less dense waters sitting above more dense water - is increasing. In other words, the oceans are become more stable, with less "up-and-down" motion.

The team has shown that the ocean stability has increased by 5.36% in the upper 6,310 metres (20,700ft) of the oceans over the past 50 to 60 years. Our paper shows some of the increased stability of the oceans is due to a warmer ocean surface because of greenhouse gases and human-caused global heating.

But why should we care? This is the big question. Does a more stable ocean matter for humans?

It does, and we will feel the effects. First, when warm waters sit at the ocean surface, they affect weather, particularly typhoons and hurricanes. In fact, warm ocean surface water provides the fuel for these large storms.

A warmer ocean, then, is less able to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Consequently, more of the carbon dioxide we emit will remain in the atmosphere, which will lead to more warming.

In addition, a more stable ocean is less efficient at moving nutrients through its waters. This means animals that require the flow of nutrient-rich waters could be at risk.

There is a final risk - one related to more severe implications in the future. The more stable oceans mean we expect the Earth to warm faster in future because of the weakening mixing that penetrates down to deep oceans, and the lower capability of the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide.

In a terrible twist of fate, the warming we have caused in the past has resulted in a more stable ocean, and that will increase future warming - a feedback loop that keeps getting stronger.

It is not all doom and gloom. The good news is we know why the climate is changing and we know how the oceans are responding. We can do something about this problem - we have the ability to slow down climate change. We just lack the will and leadership.

But if 2020 has shown us anything, it has revealed that humans can change and adapt quickly to situations. There is hope that we can navigate the challenges resulting from a more stable ocean - but we must start immediately.

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How our warmer oceans are contributing to climate breakdown

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Humans have made the oceans more stable, and the result will be more extreme weather and the acceleration of climate change. You may have heard the phrase "hot air rises". And it is true: when you heat up air, the warmed air wants to rise, like a hot-air balloon.

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About Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints

Find overviews, news, and opinions on hundreds of today's important social issues.

Don't know how to login?

Depending on this location's preferences, the log-in process could include your library card number, a student or user ID, or another provided password. If you don't know how to log in, please contact your library or school directly.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
About Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints Find overviews, news, and opinions on hundreds of today's important social issues. Don't know how to login? Depending on this location's preferences, the log-in process could include your library card number, a student or user ID, or another provided password.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Here are two awful facts about the coronavirus pandemic: It has caused more than 419,000 deaths in the United States. And public health measures to contain it drove unemployment from 3.5 percent of the labor force to 6.7 percent, with lower-wage service workers hardest hit.

Now here's one awkward fact: While all that was going on, a lot of people, including a lot of people who were already well off, got richer.

It isn't too early to start talking about the implications of this reality, which could pose yet another source of populist discontent if not appropriately addressed.

The coronavirus windfall extends well beyond plutocrats such as Elon Musk, whose net worth grew from $24.6 billion in March to more than $170 billion in December, thanks to a run-up in the stock price of Tesla, his electric-vehicle company.

Rather, the wealthiest 10 percent of households -- roughly 13 million families -- which own 88 percent of all stocks, benefited from an 18 percent increase in the S&P 500's total return during 2020.

Much of the stock market's rise can be traced to government policy: the Federal Reserve's commitment to zero interest rates, which stabilized the broader economy, but also encouraged yield-hungry investors to buy shares in lieu of bonds.

A simultaneous 15 percent rise in the median home sale price, to an all-time high of $320,625, benefited all homeowners, but especially owners of houses that could fetch the highest prices. This reflected coronavirus-related demand for single-family living spaces but also, again, Fed interest-rate policy, which helped make mortgages cheaper.

In 2020, if you owned residential real estate or corporate shares, money flowed your way, and you didn't really have to work to get it, except for the mental effort it took not to panic and sell everything in March when the market temporarily tanked.

What goes up must come down: Many on-paper gains during the plague year may prove transitory. It is also true that government to some extent protected lower-income workers, through extended unemployment benefits and the Paycheck Protection Program for small employers. We probably cannot know the complete impact of the pandemic on wealth and income distribution until it's over and "normal" times return.

But the data already suggest it is unjustifiable, distributionally, to consider paying nearly all U.S. households $1,400 "stimulus" checks, on top of the $600 already approved in December by Congress, as a bipartisan coalition, stretching from President Biden to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), wants to do.

This plan would provide at least some cash to households earning well above the median income, including 75 percent of households in the 90th to 95th percentiles of the income distribution scale, which would get an average of $1,383 each. Money would even go to 13.4 percent of households in the 95th to 99th percentiles, which would receive an average of $90 each, according to the Tax Foundation. Only the top 1 percent would be totally excluded.

The combined cost of the $600 checks and the proposed $1,400 add-on would be $631 billion, a fantastic sum about double what Medicare spent on hospital insurance in calendar 2019 and only about $60 billion less than the Defense Department spent in fiscal 2020.

Instead of showering these amounts on a U.S. population whose members in many cases weathered 2020 intact (or better), Congress and the Biden administration should target low-wage workers in the sectors most severely affected by the economic crunch.

Policymakers should also consider ways in which the government, via the tax code, could tap into some of the essentially unearned extra wealth that already prosperous Americans reaped amid the plague year.

Good candidates would be elimination of the tax deduction for mortgage interest, which cost the Treasury $30 billion in 2020, and about 60 percent of which accrued to households earning upward of $200,000. Also in need of a trim is the exemption from capital gains tax for home-sale profits ($250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for couples). This break totaled $35.9 billion in 2020.

Speaking of capital gains, the top rate, now 23.8 percent, should be nudged closer to the 37 percent top rate for ordinary income.

These would be levies on "rent," in the Econ 101 sense of profits acquired by controlling existing resources, not generating new wealth. They'd pose little risk of harming incentives, much less indicate premature hawkishness about the deficit.

Carefully targeting "stimulus" checks to those who need them, while clawing back some of the 2020 real estate and stock bonanza, would send two salutary messages: that a Democratic-controlled U.S. government intends to spend dollars according to genuinely progressive principles, not populist slogans -- and that it doesn't intend to borrow every dollar it spends.

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The rich got richer during the pandemic. We need to claw back their gains

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Here are two awful facts about the coronavirus pandemic: It has caused more than 419,000 deaths in the United States. And public health measures to contain it drove unemployment from 3.5 percent of the labor force to 6.7 percent, with lower-wage service workers hardest hit.

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https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3403200472/OVIC?u=306tslac&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=cd698055

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Democrats have already won the fight on a 'living wage'

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Democrats have already won the fight on a 'living wage'

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https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A654375055/OVIC?u=j031901055&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=110a4dee

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https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A598005673/OVIC?u=j245904002&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=aee19b08

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900232769

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Rich got richer during pandemic

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Here are two awful facts about the coronavirus pandemic: It has caused more than 419,000 deaths in the United States. And public health measures to contain it drove unemployment from 3.5 percent of the labor force to 6.7 percent, with lower-wage service workers hardest hit.

Now here's one awkward fact: While all that was going on, a lot of people, including a lot of people who were already well off, got richer.

It isn't too early to start talking about the implications of this reality, which could pose yet another source of populist discontent if not appropriately addressed.

The coronavirus windfall extends well beyond plutocrats such as Elon Musk, whose net worth grew from $24.6 billion in March to more than $170 billion in December, thanks to a run-up in the stock price of Tesla, his electric-vehicle company.

Rather, the wealthiest 10 percent of households -- roughly 13 million families -- which own 88 percent of all stocks, benefited from an 18 percent increase in the S&P 500's total return during 2020.

Much of the stock market's rise can be traced to government policy: the Federal Reserve's commitment to zero interest rates, which stabilized the broader economy, but also encouraged yield-hungry investors to buy shares in lieu of bonds.

A simultaneous 15 percent rise in the median home sale price, to an all-time high of $320,625, benefited all homeowners, but especially owners of houses that could fetch the highest prices. This reflected coronavirus-related demand for single-family living spaces but also, again, Fed interest-rate policy, which helped make mortgages cheaper.

In 2020, if you owned residential real estate or corporate shares, money flowed your way, and you didn't really have to work to get it, except for the mental effort it took not to panic and sell everything in March when the market temporarily tanked.

What goes up must come down: Many on-paper gains during the plague year may prove transitory. It is also true that government to some extent protected lower-income workers, through extended unemployment benefits and the Paycheck Protection Program for small employers. We probably cannot know the complete impact of the pandemic on wealth and income distribution until it's over and "normal" times return.

But the data already suggest it is unjustifiable, distributionally, to consider paying nearly all U.S. households $1,400 "stimulus" checks, on top of the $600 already approved in December by Congress, as a bipartisan coalition, stretching from President Biden to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), wants to do.

This plan would provide at least some cash to households earning well above the median income, including 75 percent of households in the 90th to 95th percentiles of the income distribution scale, which would get an average of $1,383 each. Money would even go to 13.4 percent of households in the 95th to 99th percentiles, which would receive an average of $90 each, according to the Tax Foundation. Only the top 1 percent would be totally excluded.

The combined cost of the $600 checks and the proposed $1,400 add-on would be $631 billion, a fantastic sum about double what Medicare spent on hospital insurance in calendar 2019 and only about $60 billion less than the Defense Department spent in fiscal 2020.

Instead of showering these amounts on a U.S. population whose members in many cases weathered 2020 intact (or better), Congress and the Biden administration should target low-wage workers in the sectors most severely affected by the economic crunch.

Policymakers should also consider ways in which the government, via the tax code, could tap into some of the essentially unearned extra wealth that already prosperous Americans reaped amid the plague year.

Good candidates would be elimination of the tax deduction for mortgage interest, which cost the Treasury $30 billion in 2020, and about 60 percent of which accrued to households earning upward of $200,000. Also in need of a trim is the exemption from capital gains tax for home-sale profits ($250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for couples). This break totaled $35.9 billion in 2020.

Speaking of capital gains, the top rate, now 23.8 percent, should be nudged closer to the 37 percent top rate for ordinary income.

These would be levies on "rent," in the Econ 101 sense of profits acquired by controlling existing resources, not generating new wealth. They'd pose little risk of harming incentives, much less indicate premature hawkishness about the deficit.

Carefully targeting "stimulus" checks to those who need them, while clawing back some of the 2020 real estate and stock bonanza, would send two salutary messages: that a Democratic-controlled U.S. government intends to spend dollars according to genuinely progressive principles, not populist slogans -- and that it doesn't intend to borrow every dollar it spends.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The rich got richer during the pandemic. We need to claw back their gains

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Here are two awful facts about the coronavirus pandemic: It has caused more than 419,000 deaths in the United States. And public health measures to contain it drove unemployment from 3.5 percent of the labor force to 6.7 percent, with lower-wage service workers hardest hit.