>Minimum wage was created specifically to stop abuse of large numbers of people.
Fifty years ago, the politicians who pushed for the increased minimum wage did not hide their motives. Nor, in an era of state-sanctioned segregation, did they feel the need to hide their knowledge of who the intended victims of minimum-wage increases would be. In a 1957 Senate hearing, minimum-wage advocate Senator (and future President) John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts said:
"Having on the market a rather large source of cheap labor [hundreds of thousands of black workers] depresses wages outside of that group, the wages of the white worker who has to compete.
When an employer can substitute a colored worker at a lower wage, it affects the whole wage structure of an area, doesn't it? There are, as you pointed out, hundreds of thousands of colored workers looking for decent work."
So, yes, the minimum wage was meant to stop the "abuse" of whites by blacks willing to work for a lower wage. It's sad when the racists have a better grasp of basic economics than the enlightened liberals.
Truth. The whole point of the minimum wage is to convert a labor structure into a voting structure. Abolish the minimum wage and the new workers would start thinking about business, school boards, zoning laws, the tax structure, and so forth. And that simply would not do.
Fifty years ago, the politicians who pushed for the increased minimum wage did not hide their motives. Nor, in an era of state-sanctioned segregation, did they feel the need to hide their knowledge of who the intended victims of minimum-wage increases would be. In a 1957 Senate hearing, minimum-wage advocate Senator (and future President) John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts said:
"Having on the market a rather large source of cheap labor [hundreds of thousands of black workers] depresses wages outside of that group, the wages of the white worker who has to compete.
When an employer can substitute a colored worker at a lower wage, it affects the whole wage structure of an area, doesn't it? There are, as you pointed out, hundreds of thousands of colored workers looking for decent work."
So, yes, the minimum wage was meant to stop the "abuse" of whites by blacks willing to work for a lower wage. It's sad when the racists have a better grasp of basic economics than the enlightened liberals.