Minimum Wage Debate Steeped in History, Dueling Stats
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 3rd, 2014 11:08 pm by HL
Minimum Wage Debate Steeped in History, Dueling Stats
Michael Cipriano, RealClearPolitics
Democrats intent on raising the federal minimum wage are resuming an old battle, one unfolding in the states as well as Washington, D.C. In the 1930s, the issue was fought in Congress, the states, on the presidential campaign trail, and before the Supreme Court, which amid the Great Depression ultimately ruled the minimum wage to be constitutional. The initial battleground, however, was state capitals, which then — as now — set their own labor standards. But even those state laws got caught up in the machinations of national politics. In 1936, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a New York…