Minimum Wages

Report Outline
Minimum Wage Proposalls in Congress
Application of Fair Labor Standards Act
Conflict Over Revision of Wage-Hour Law
Special Focus

Minimum Wage Proposalls in Congress

Upward revision of the wage floor established by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 forms an important part of the administration's program to sustain mass purchasing power and promote high levels of employment in the postwar years. President Truman told Congress, Sept. 6, 1945, that “the goal of a 40-cent minimum [wage] was inadequate when established” and that “it has now become obsolete.” He urged that the statutory minimum be raised “substantially” to eliminate “substandards of living.” Director John W. Snyder of the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion asserted, Oct. 1, that “one vital element in a program to maintain purchasing power and living standards is an effective minimum-wage program.”

Administration Support for Higher Minimum Wage

The President reminded Congress in his September message that the Fair Labor Standards Act had declared it to be the policy of the government “to eliminate from interstate industry wage levels detrimental to the maintenance of minimum standards of living.” Several million workers, said the President, “even now have hourly earnings much below what is necessary for a decent standard of living.”

The foundation of a healthy national economy cannot be secure so long as any large section of our working people receive substandard wages. The existence of substandard wage levels sharply curtails the national purchasing power and narrows the market for the products of our farms and factories.…The high prosperity which we seek in the postwar years will not be meaningful for all our people if any large proportion of our industrial wage earners receive wages as low as the minimum now sanctioned by the Fair Labor Standards Act.