the minimum wage was established in the united states in 1890.
when was the minimum wage established in the united states?
1890
in 1910, in conjunction with advocacy work led by florence kelley of the national consumer league, the women's trade union league (wtlu) of massachusetts under the leadership of elizabeth evans took up the cause of minimum wage legislation in massachusetts. over the next two years, a coalition of social reform groups and labor advocates in boston pushed for minimum wage legislation in the state. on june 4, 1912, massachusetts passed the first minimum wage legislation in the united states, which established a state commission for recommending non-compulsory minimum wages for women and children. the passage of the bill was significantly assisted by the lawrence textile strike which had raged for ten weeks at the beginning of 1912. the strike brought national attention to the plight of the low wage textile workers, and pushed the state legislatures, who feared the magnitude of the strike, to enact progressive labor legislation.
minimum wage in the united states
kim chang-hwan, a professor of sociology at the university of kansas, usa, also objected to ju jin-hyung's argument. in his blog he wrote, "the effect of the minimum hourly rate on the labor market is not established academically. the theory of economics suggests that if the minimum hourly rate is increased, the employment rate decreases. but the reality is that the minimum rate is cleaner than the theory." he also pointed out that there is a disagreement about whether it is bad for employment to decline by raising the minimum wage, and that high wages have the effect of promoting structural reforms and forcing productivity improvements. he said, "if businesses and self-employed people who can not afford the minimum wage are closed, the capital is absorbed into capital that can give more than the minimum wage, rather than being publicly decomposed. in this case, the productivity of the economy as a whole is improved and structural upgrading is forced." professor kim also pointed out that the conservative press, which is promoting the 'minimization of employment by the minimum wage', is using the 'minimum wage increase' as a means of ideological struggle even though the new minimum wage is not applied yet. and he criticized ju jin-hyung, "if the minimum wage increase was a big problem, you should criticize the increase by 9% over 1989 and 12 times over 30 years. until now, you have been quiet, but once the minimum wage raised the 16%, you can not criticize the minimum wage increase policy. if the korean economy was ruined because the minimum wage was high, it would have been ruined."
minimum wage in south korea