Minimum Wage In The United States
As of July 24, 2009, the federal minimum wage in the United States is $7.25 per hour. Some states and municipalities have set minimum wages higher than the federal level, with the highest state minimum wage being $9.19 in Washington. Some U.S. territories (such as American Samoa) are exempt. Some types of labor are also exempt, and tipped labor must be paid a minimum of $2.13 per hour, as long as the hourly wage plus tipped income result in a minimum of $7.25 per hour.
The July 24, 2009, increase was the last of three steps of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007. The wage increase was signed into law on May 25, 2007, as a rider to the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007. The bill also contains almost $5 billion in tax cuts for small businesses.
Among those paid by the hour in 2009, 980,000 were reported as earning exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage. Nearly 2.6 million were reported as earning wages below the minimum. Together, these 3.6 million workers with wages at or below the minimum made up 4.9 percent of all hourly-paid workers.
Read more about Minimum Wage In The United States: List of US Minimum Wage Levels By Jurisdiction, Prior U.S. Minimum Wages Laws, Economists' Analysis, Reasons For Economic Controversy, Jobs Affected By The Minimum Wage
Famous quotes containing the words united states, minimum, wage, united and/or states:
“In the United States there is more space where nobody is is than where anybody is.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“There are ... two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the system’s ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.”
—H.L.A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus)
“It is the women of Europe who pay the price while war rages, and it will be the women who will pay again when war has run its bloody course and Europe sinks down into the slough of poverty like a harried beast too spent to wage the fight. It will be the sonless mothers who will bend their shoulders to the plough and wield in age-palsied hands the reaphook.”
—Kate Richards O’Hare (1877–1948)
“In the United States there’s a Puritan ethic and a mythology of success. He who is successful is good. In Latin countries, in Catholic countries, a successful person is a sinner.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“Colonel “Bat” Guano: Okay, I’m going to get your money for you. But if you don’t get the President of the United States on that phone, you know what’s going to happen to you?
Group Captain Lionel Mandrake: What?
Colonel “Bat” Guano: You’re going to have to answer to the Coca-Cola company.”
—Stanley Kubrick (b. 1928)