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Such laws have been promoted as a way to ensure that people who work can make enough money to adequately support themselves and their families. Supporters of minimum wage laws argue that they are even more important because reforms in America’s social welfare programs have required welfare recipients to find jobs. Opponents of minimum wage laws have criticized them as unwieldy government rules that lock people out of jobs and do little to help the poor.

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Under the FLSA, employers may pay young people under age twenty less than minimum wage for the first ninety days of their employment, after which regular minimum wage rules apply. In addition, students who are enrolled in vocational education classes and who work at jobs related to their study can be paid 75 percent of the minimum wage.

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Not all workers are covered by minimum wage laws. Jobholders who can be paid less than the minimum wage include some workers with disabilities, full-time college students, and employees who receive tips. People in this last category, such as restaurant workers, can be paid less than the minimum wage by their employer as long as their total compensation (including tips) exceeds the minimum wage.

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As of 2016, cities such as Seattle, San Francisco, Washington, DC, and New York have raised minimum wage standards to $15 per hour. Protests in favor of increasing the minimum wage continue across the nation for low-wage workers as other states and cities considered raising the minimum wage. At the federal level, the 2016 US presidential candidates have expressed consideration for a minimum wage increase.

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On April 15, 2015, more than sixty thousand low-wage workers ranging from health care to retail workers protested across the United States for a national increase of the minimum wage to $15 per hour. It has been called the “largest protest by low wage workers in US history.”

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The Fight for $15 is an organization that assembled after November 2012 when more than two hundred fast-food workers in New York City walked out from places such as McDonald’s and Taco Bell to protest low wages.

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Proponents argue that many are single parents whose families rely on the meager income minimum wage jobs provide. “Every penny makes a difference because low-wage workers make the choice between putting food on the table and paying for electricity or buying clothes for their children"

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Congress increased the minimum wage in 1949, 1956, 1961, 1968, 1974, 1991, 1996, and 1997. From 1997 to 2007, the federal minimum wage stayed at $5.15 an hour. In April 2007, Congress passed legislation that instituted a three-step increase in the national minimum wage. The 2007 law called for the minimum wage to reach $5.85 in the summer of 2007, $6.55 in the summer of 2008, and $7.25 in the summer of 2009. President Barack Obama, before taking office in January 2009, expressed support for increasing the minimum wage again—to $9.50 per hour by 2011. However, as of 2016, the minimum wage remained $7.25

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Combined with an expansion in Medicaid eligibility, which was authorized via the Affordable Care Act and funded via federal dollars, a $10.10 minimum wage would reduce states’ pre-health reform Medicaid spending by more than $2.5 billion each year, the report found.

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Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton also supported a federal minimum wage increase but believed that the states should still make their own decisions regarding the hikes. Minimum wage laws are also found in other countries of the world.

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