Railroad Wage Order, 1940

Focus Question: What factors influence wages and productivity of workers?

Topics on the Page

Wages and Earnings

• Equal Pay Days
• Black Women's Equal Pay Day

Minimum Wage

• History of the Minimum Wage

Living Wage and Basic Needs Budget

• Special Topic Page: Salary Caps and Professional Sports Teams

8-Hour Day and 40-Hour Work Week

• Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938

Where Works Pays:  How Does Where You Live Matter for Your Earnings?, Brookings (July 10, 2018)

In 2013, average CEO salary was $15 million

• average worker salary at same company $52,000

In 2019, CEOs earned 320 times as much as a typical worker

Wages and Earnings

To see the how much money people earn in different jobs and occupations, go to the Bureau of Labor Statistic's Occupational Outlook Handbook that shows median income for occupational groups.

• Highest Paying Occupations

• Fastest Growing Occupations

• Most New Jobs

Earnings and Unemployment Rates by Educational Attainment, 2015

The Most Common Job in Every State: 1978 to 2014

• Manufacturing jobs have disappeared and there are fewer and fewer farmers

• Secretaries are no longer in demand

• Truck drivers remain a high demand job

Image by Media Matters for America

Equal Pay Days

Equal Pay Day (April 12, 2016) marks the date that white women would need to work into 2016 to equal the wages earned by men in 2015.

• For more, see Myth Busting the Pay Gap from the official blog of the U.S. Department of Labor.

• Click here for the Global Gender Gap for 2014

Black Women's Equal Pay Day

• July 31
• Black women must work 1 year and 8 months to earn as much as their White male counterparts

• 2012 National Occupational and Wage Estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• American Teens Can't Read a Pay Slip from MarketWatch.com reports findings that American teens struggle with most financial concepts

• New Report Shows how Walmart Forces Its Employees to Live on the Dole, from Mother Jones, June 2013

Can you Survive on Fast-Food Wages? Try Our Calculator from Mother Jones (August 1, 2013). Here are more facts reported by Mother Jones, November/December 2013, p. 11.

• Median hourly wage for fast-food workers nationwide: $8.94 an hour

• Percentage of fast-food workers who are women: 65%

• Percentage of fast-food workers older than 20 who have children: 36%

• Income of someone earning $8.84 an hour: $18,595 a year

Click here for an explanation and video that guides the viewer through a paystub

Striking It Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States. Emmanuel Saez, University of California at Berkeley (September 3, 2013). This research shows that the top 1 percent's share of income is at its highest level since 1928.

• To get a sense of how much the top 1% earns compared to the rest of Americans, watch this short video from 2012.
• In 2013, Bill Gates was the richest American for the 20th year in a row.

Coming Up Short: Wages, Public Assistance and Economic Security, a 2011 report from the organization, Wider Opportunities for Women shows how workers without four-year degree with struggle to earn enough money in low-paying jobs.

• Between 2008 and 2018, the number of professional and service jobs will increase while employment in production, including manufacturing, will continue to decline.

• This will include many jobs for nurses, home health aides and customer service representatives, but fewer well-paying factory jobs.

• The fastest growth will be in jobs that require an associate's degree

• Fewer than 13 percent of the jobs created by 2018 that can be filled by a person without a four-year degree will support a single parent and two children.

• Only 43 percent of new jobs created by 2018 will enable a family with two wage earners to have economic security.
• (Material summarized from "Who Stole the Future?" Stephanie Kraft, Valley Advocate, May 5, 2011, p. 7).

Number in Poverty and Poverty Rate: 1959 to 2009. United States

Click here for a short summary of labor economist Stephen J. Rose's work on Social Stratification in the United States



Fair Labor Standards Act- this act was established in 1938, but has been amends as late as July 2009 to update the minimum wage. This act established a minimum wage, overtime, record keeping, and youth employment standards.

Minimum Wage

The U.S. Minimum Wage through the Years, CNN Business (April, 2019) 

• An interactive chart showing minimum wage from 1940 to 2018 in actual and in 2018 dollars.  For example, .25 cents in 1938 is worth $4.45 today 
  

What is the History of the Minimum Wage? from University of California Davis 

Here is a map that breaks down the minimum wage in every state from the U. S. Department of Labor.

Here is the state by state minimum wage breakdown from 1968-2012.

Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 set the minimum wage at $.25 an hour.

• To get a sense of what $.25 was worth back then, refer to the picture below.

• In 1941, the minimum wage was $.30; that is $4.82 in 2015 dollars

Seattle's Minimum Wage is now $15 an hour: is that a good idea? by economist Gary Burtless

Should the Minimum. Wage Be Increased? Background on the Issue

Where are the World's Highest Minimum Wages? World Economic Forum



Plan and Budget, Google Applied Digital Skills.  Learn to make sound financial decisions

Living Wage and Basic Needs Budget

Living Wage Calculator from Massachusetts Institute of Technology by state and communities across the United States.

The Minimum Wage Just Went Up—But the Fight for a Living Wage is More Urgent Than Ever, Valley Advocate, February 24, 2016



Living Wage Calculation for Massachusetts, from MIT


Basic Needs Budget Calculator shows how much it takes for families to afford minimum daily necessities, from National Center for Children in Poverty

• See the online game, Spent to simulate how to build a budget using limited financial resources.

Image from National Archives

8 Hour Work Day and 40 Hour Work Week

Does the 8-Hour Day and the 40-Hour Week Come From Henry Ford, or Labor Unions?Politifact (September 9, 2015)

Eight-Hour Movement, Encyclopedia of Chicago

Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, U. S. Department of Labor

• Established minimum wage (25 cents an hour)
• Maximum work week (44 hours)
• Banned child labor