IN 1938, after a hard battle with the U.S. Supreme Court, Franklin Roosevelt finally got a constitutionally acceptable federal minimum wage law enacted. The Fair Labor Standards Act set 25¢ an hour as the national minimum wage, with an automatic increase to 40¢ in 1945; it also provided for time-and-a-half for overtime in a work-week gradually scaled down from 44 to 40 hours. The law covered only workers in major industries engaged in interstate commerce it was mainly aimed at the plight of poorly paid textile workers in the South, did nothing for housemaids or migrant farm workers. Congress raised...
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