Fair Labor Standards Act
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) established a national minimum wage, guaranteed 'time-and-a-half' for overtime in certain jobs, and prohibited most employment of minors in "oppressive child labor." For nonagricultural operations, it restricts the hours that children under age 16 can work and forbids the employment of children under age 18 in certain jobs deemed too dangerous. For agricultural operations, it prohibits the employment of children under age 16 during school hours and in certain jobs deemed too dangerous.
Commentary
Cry Wolf Quotes
[The Fair Labor Standards Act] constitutes a step in the direction of communism, bolshevism, fascism, and Nazism.
[The Fair Labor Standards Act] will destroy small industry….[these ideas are] the product of those whose thinking is rooted in an alien philosophy and who are bent upon the destruction of our whole constitutional system and the setting up of a red-labor communistic despotism upon the ruins of our Christian civilization.
[The Fair Labor Standards Act] would create chaos in business never yet known to us.... It sets an all-time high in crackpot legislation. Let me make it very clear that I am not opposed to the social theory.... No decent American citizen can take exception to this attitude. What I do take exception to is any approach to a solution of this problem which is utterly impractical and in operation would be much more destructive than constructive to the very purposes which it is designed to serve.
Backgrounders & Briefs
Good Rules: Ten Stories Of Successful Regulation
Demos looks at ten laws and rules that we take for granted.
Minimum Wage Policy Brief
By Professor Stephanie Luce
The idea of minimum wage laws has been around for more than a century. They are still a good idea.
