History Of Minimum Wage

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Have you ever thought about why you get paid the amount you do and why the government has set laws for employers to pay a certain amount? Well it’s called minimum wage. Minimum wage is the lowest amount that can be paid hourly by an employer legally has to pay for one’s labor. The first laws can be traced back as early as 1349. It was found in the Ordinance of Laborers which King Edward III set the wage for all the laborers in England during the medieval ages. King Edward III and his Lords had servants to work their lands. One year before, the black plague was in England and it kills most of the people. Due to the major shortage of servant, the wages increased drastically. This made King Edward III rethink everything that he was doing. He decided to set a wage ceiling. This is one of the Ordinances that were set as the Stature of Labors in 1351. The Ordinance raised penalties for anyone paying over the set rate. This eventually was used to set the living wage as well. In 1894 New Zealand was the first to set laws for minimum wage that was recognized by the nation. Other countries started to follow. Australia was next in line to follow the lead in 1896 and then in 1909 Great Britain. The United States did not introduce minimum wage until 1938. The United Kingdom reintroduced and assed to their minimum wage laws in 1998. Ninety percent of all the countries, there is a registration or a binding collective bargaining that covers minimum wage. There are some countries that do not have a minimum wage laws. They depend on the employers and trade unions to set what is the minimum amount that will be paid. These countries are Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland and Germany, Austria, and Italy. In other countries minimum wage does ... ... middle of paper ... ...back. The District of Columbia and seven other states have already raised the minimum wage and 34 more states have started debates with their legislative represenives. Even the activists from 8 states are trying to get ballot referendums to demand minimum wage increase for the lowest paid workers this year 2014. President Obama has stated that “Nobody who works full time should be raising a family in poverty.” He has also said with the increase in minimum wage is” especially important for women.” Obama was pointing out that more than half of the people he is targeting to help are women. Minimum wage has played a major roll for everyone starting back in the 1300’s. A lot of people agree that the nation should have the some type of minimum wage but not everyone agrees on how much and if there should be laws for it. If there wasn’t minimum wage where would we be today?

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