By Jonathan GrossmanOn Saturday, June 25, 1938, to avoid pocket (click here) vetoes 9 days after Congress had adjourned, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed 121 bills. Among these bills was a landmark law in the Nation's social and economic development -- Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA). Against a history of judicial opposition, the depression-born FLSA had survived, not unscathed, more than a year of Congressional altercation. In its final form, the act applied to industries whose combined employment represented only about one-fifth of the labor force. In these industries, it banned oppressive child labor and set the minimum hourly wage at 25 cents, and the maximum workweek at 44 hours...
1938? That is crazy. It was one of the worst economic times in USA history.
The first minimum wage was set on October 24, 1938 at 25 cents per hour. Poverty level at that time was still not known. The War on Poverty because the definition of what poverty in the USA looked like and that wasn't until the 1960s.
FDR asks Congress to authorize
$3.75 billion in federal spending to stimulate the sagging economy.
Economic indicators respond favorably over the next few months. Still,
unemployment will remain high and is predicted to stay that way for some
time.
