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Employment Wages Information
The legal definition of a wage is the amount of money paid
for some specified quantity of labor. When expressed with respect to time
(usually per hour), it is typically called the legal wage rate, and is specified
in pre-tax amounts. It is often the main monetary item upon which the worker and
the employer focus when negotiating an employment contract.
Early forms of wages included salt (from which the word salary is derived). In
modern English, the word salary tends to be used when referring to employment in
which the employee is not paid by the hour.
Depending on the structure and traditions of different economies around the
world, wage rates are either primarily market-driven (the USA) or influenced by
other factors such as tradition, social structure and seniority, as in Japan.
In the United States, as of 2004, the prevailing wage rate for manual labor
might range from $10 up to $70 per-hour, depending on the type of work and its
location.
Several countries have enacted a statutory minimum wage rate in an attempt to
prevent the supposed exploitation of low-paid workers.
Minimum Wage in the United States
The first attempt at establishing a legal minimum wage in the United States came
in 1933, when a $.25-per-hour standard was set as part of the National Recovery
Act. However, in 1935 the United States Supreme Court declared the National
Recovery Act unconstitutional, and the minimum wage was abolished.
The legal minimum wage was re-established in the United States in 1938 (pursuant
to the Fair Labor Standards Act), once again at $.25 per hour ($3.22 in 2005
dollars.) It had its highest purchasing value ever in 1968, when it was
$1.60/hour ($8.85 in 2005 dollars.)
During his presidency, Bill Clinton gave states the power to set their minimum
wages above the federal level. As of 2004, 12 states had done so; and on
November 2 of that year two additional states (Florida and Nevada) approved
increases in statewide referendums. Some smaller government entities, such as
counties and cities, observe legal minimum wages that are higher than the state
as a whole; in some cases, the ordinance applies only to businesses that are
under contract to the local government itself, while in others — most notably
San Francisco — the higher rate is enforced across the board. San Francisco's
$8.50-per-hour minimum wage is the highest in the nation.
For more free legal information on Employment Laws, please use the
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