Retrospectives: American Economists in the Progressive Era on the Minimum Wage

Robert Prasch

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1999, vol. 13, issue 2, 221-230

Abstract: Beginning in 1912, a number of states passed minimum wage legislation that applied exclusively to women and minors. These tentative experiments in economic legislation ended in 1923 when the Supreme Court overturned the District of Columbia's minimum wage law. Remarkably, at this time virtually all professional American economists supported some variety of minimum wage legislation; however, they did not all give the same reasons. This paper briefly examines the context in which this minimum wage legislation was passed and then surveys several of the arguments that American economists gave in support of minimum wage laws.

JEL-codes: B29 J38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.13.2.221
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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