The Racist Origin of the Minimum Wage

[Chris]

Now we all know the Democrats have a long history of racism. Often the counter to that is but those Democrats were conservative, offered without substantiating evidence. Here we have evidence racism was promulgated by liberal progressives with minimum wage.

[MisterVeritis]

Thank you, Chris. It is good to be reminded, from time to time.

[Dr. Who]

The minimum wage did not originate in America, thus its origins are rather different than described: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage

[Chris]

The minimum wage did not originate in America, thus its origins are rather different than described: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage

The OP is about its use in America. You have to listen to the video to get the context and not try to change for reframe the topic.

Did you even read your source? I mean you got to love the contradiction: "Modern minimum wage laws trace their origin to the Ordinance of Labourers (1349), which was a decree by King Edward III that set a maximum wage for laborers in medieval England."

[Dr. Who]

The OP is about its use in America. You have to listen to the video to get the context and not try to change for reframe the topic.

Did you even read your source? I mean you got to love the contradiction: "Modern minimum wage laws trace their origin to the Ordinance of Labourers (1349), which was a decree by King Edward III that set a maximum wage for laborers in medieval England."

Did you read any further than the first paragraph? It goes on to describe the first minimum wage laws:

"It was not until the 1890s that the first modern legislative attempts to regulate minimum wages were seen in New Zealand and Australia.[13] The movement for a minimum wage was initially focused on stopping sweatshop labor and controlling the proliferation of sweatshops in manufacturing industries.[14] The sweatshops employed large numbers of women and young workers, paying them what were considered to be substandard wages. The sweatshop owners were thought to have unfair bargaining power over their employees, and a minimum wage was proposed as a means to make them pay fairly. Over time, the focus changed to helping people, especially families, become more self-sufficient"


Oh and FYI I did watch your video. I am only disagreeing with the notion that the concept or origin has anything to do with America, not whether its introduction in America was or wasn't linked to the Eugenics movement.

[Chris]

Did you read any further than the first paragraph? It goes on to describe the first minimum wage laws:

"It was not until the 1890s that the first modern legislative attempts to regulate minimum wages were seen in New Zealand and Australia.[13] The movement for a minimum wage was initially focused on stopping sweatshop labor and controlling the proliferation of sweatshops in manufacturing industries.[14] The sweatshops employed large numbers of women and young workers, paying them what were considered to be substandard wages. The sweatshop owners were thought to have unfair bargaining power over their employees, and a minimum wage was proposed as a means to make them pay fairly. Over time, the focus changed to helping people, especially families, become more self-sufficient"


Oh and FYI I did watch your video. I am only disagreeing with the notion that the concept or origin has anything to do with America, not whether its introduction in America was or wasn't linked to the Eugenics movement.

The orgin of min wage in America was progressive racism. That's the topic. Not the origin of min wage. Go start another topic instead of changing this one.

[Chris]

As to the connection to eugenics, which was a major program of early progressivism, the video references two papers. One was The Minimum Wage as Part of a Program for Social Reform by Henry R. Seager in 1913:



The other is The eugenic effects of minimum wage laws, a survery of progressive thinking at the time:

Progressive economists, like their neoclassical critics, believed that binding minimum wages would cause job losses. However, the progressive economists also believed that the job loss induced by minimum wages was a social benefit, as it performed the eugenic service ridding the labor force of the “unemployable.” Sidney and Beatrice Webb (1897 [1920], p. 785) put it plainly: “With regard to certain sections of the population [the “unemployable”], this unemployment is not a mark of social disease, but actually of social health.” “[O]f all ways of dealing with these unfortunate parasites,” Sidney Webb (1912, p. 992) opined in the Journal of Political Economy, “the most ruinous to the community is to allow them to unrestrainedly compete as wage earners.” A minimum wage was seen to operate eugenically through two channels: by deterring prospective immigrants (Henderson, 1900) and also by removing from employment the “unemployable,” who, thus identified, could be, for example, segregated in rural communities or sterilized.

[Chris]

From Why the Minimum Wage Can’t Solve the Poverty Problem:

[Tahuyaman]

The minimum wage did not originate in America, thus its origins are rather different than described: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage

Did you read any further than the first paragraph? It goes on to describe the first minimum wage laws:

"It was not until the 1890s that the first modern legislative attempts to regulate minimum wages were seen in New Zealand and Australia.[13] The movement for a minimum wage was initially focused on stopping sweatshop labor and controlling the proliferation of sweatshops in manufacturing industries.[14] The sweatshops employed large numbers of women and young workers, paying them what were considered to be substandard wages. The sweatshop owners were thought to have unfair bargaining power over their employees, and a minimum wage was proposed as a means to make them pay fairly. Over time, the focus changed to helping people, especially families, become more self-sufficient"


Oh and FYI I did watch your video. I am only disagreeing with the notion that the concept or origin has anything to do with America, not whether its introduction in America was or wasn't linked to the Eugenics movement.

Do you have any comments on the substance of the video posted in the OP?

[Peter1469]

It is really only a small percentage of people who make the minimum wage. Most are in that situation (other than new entrants to the world of work) due to their own poor life choices made during their lives. How do you fix that?