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A posed photo of two white women and a black man in a suit.
Employment
  1. Social Security and Retirement
  2. Retirement Age and Social Security
  3. Working at Home
  4. Longer Years of Retirement
  5. Employment trends
  6. Foreign workers in the United States
  7. Mexican Workers in the United States
  8. Workplace Safety Standards
  9. Work-related Injuries and Deaths
  10. Growth of Large Corporate Farming
  11. Union Membership Across the United States
  12. Laws Regarding Working Women
  13. Labor Contracts in the United States
  14. Right-to-Work Laws
  15. Public worker unions in the United States
  16. Unemployment insurance
  17. Equal Opportunity Employment Laws
  18. Workers’ Compensation
  19. Minimum Age for Agricultural Employment
  20. Minors in the Workplace
  21. Minimum Wage
  22. Employment of Persons with Disabilities
  23. Major Equal Employment Legislation in the U.S.
  24. Employment in the Service Sector
  25. Unemployment
  26. State’s Unique Worker’s Compensation Laws
  27. Life on Unemployment
  28. Minimum Wage and Poverty
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Poster informing workers of minimum wage rates
This Department of Labor poster describes the minimum wage and must be posted in certain workplaces.
Image Courtesy of Department of Labor.
Minimum Wage
The minimum wage that an employer has to pay its employees is set by the federal or, in some cases, state governments. The first minimum wage law was passed in 1938 and it applied to workers involved in interstate commerce. Over the years, Congress added amendments to the Federal Minimum Wage Act that extended the law to include state and local government employees, workers in service and retail jobs, transit employees, construction workers, domestic workers, and those working in restaurants, hotels, and farms. Minimum wage laws now cover most workers who receive an hourly wage. In addition to federal minimum wage laws, some states have passed their own minimum wage laws. Some of these states set minimum wages higher than the federal minimum wage. Currently, eleven states and the District of Columbia have set minimum hourly wages higher than the federal requirement of $5.15.
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