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Yes, it's reliably accurate and it was reliably accurate in 1930. It's how we've decided delegate apportionment and electoral votes, it's how we've determined federal funding and all sorts of things. To be sitting here arguing that Census Bureau data is not accurate is simply idiotic.
Except that it routinely undercounts minorities...
Obviously, you've never collected Census Data. I did in 2000 and 2010. In 2000, it was in a town called Cicero, which had a very high Hispanic population, and frankly, they wouldn't even answer the door. When I did it in the Western burbs in 2010, it was more your white nuts who didn't want no gummit collecting data on them. And today we have computers and shit to help us fill in the gaps.
the Data in 1930 was probably absolute shit.
You're not going to suddenly change my mind..
GUy, I'm not about changing your mind. YOu are a sorry ass Tool who just needs to be mocked and humiliated every time you try to justify the racist status quo.
Yes, it's reliably accurate and it was reliably accurate in 1930. It's how we've decided delegate apportionment and electoral votes, it's how we've determined federal funding and all sorts of things. To be sitting here arguing that Census Bureau data is not accurate is simply idiotic.
Except that it routinely undercounts minorities...
Obviously, you've never collected Census Data. I did in 2000 and 2010. In 2000, it was in a town called Cicero, which had a very high Hispanic population, and frankly, they wouldn't even answer the door. When I did it in the Western burbs in 2010, it was more your white nuts who didn't want no gummit collecting data on them. And today we have computers and shit to help us fill in the gaps.
the Data in 1930 was probably absolute shit.
You're not going to suddenly change my mind..
GUy, I'm not about changing your mind. YOu are a sorry ass Tool who just needs to be mocked and humiliated every time you try to justify the racist status quo.
Quit lying Joe, Cicero is made up of. Mostly Italians...why do you have the audusity to lie on here so much?
Every one on here seen "Wayne's world " and knows the opening scene to."Chicago"
Its not a Mexican neighborhood it's Italians
Companies were not forced to hire black people, there were no laws protecting them from discrimination at the time. So when faced with the prospect of either hiring a black man or white man at the same mandated wage, they typically went with the white man. The Minimum Wage, so proudly promoted by Progressives to this day, was an abhorrently racist policy designed to improve employment opportunity for whites over blacks and minorities.
This was the result of employers with racist mind-sets. If anything the minimum wage highlighted this problem and in this way contributed to the eventual passage of laws protecting minorities from this kind of discrimination.
Davis-Bacon was a racist act that created a discrimination problem progressives had to fix. It was the original minimum wage law.
Sent from my SD4930UR using USMessageBoard.com mobile app
The Davis–Bacon act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Herbert Hoover on March 3, 1931.[2]
Davis and Bacon were both Republicans, as was Hoover.
There were many Republican progressives back then.
Prior to the passage of the federal Davis–Bacon Act (abbreviated DBA), other jurisdictions in the United States had passed laws that required that contractors on public works projects pay the wage that prevailed locally. “In 1891, Kansas adopted a law requiring that ‘not less than the current rate of per diem wages in the locality where the work is performed shall be paid to laborers, workmen, mechanics, and other persons so employed by or on behalf of the state of Kansas’ or of other local jurisdictions. Through the next several decades, other states followed suit, enacting a variety of labor-protective statutes covering workers in contract production.” [3][4]
In 1927, a contractor employed African-American workers from Alabama to build a Veterans' Bureau hospital in the district of Congressman Bacon.[5] Prompted by concerns about the conditions of workers, displacement of local workers by migrant workers, and competitive pressure toward lower wages,[6] Bacon introduced the first version of his bill in 1927.
Over the next few years, Bacon attempted to introduce variations on the prevailing wage bill 13 times.[7][8] Finally, in the midst of the Great Depression, with local workers complaining about cheap labor taking their jobs and Congressmen frustrated that their efforts to bring "pork barrel" projects home to their districts did not result in jobs (and therefore political support) from their constituents,[5] the Hoover Administration requested that Congress reconsider the Act once more as a means of preventing falling wages.[9]Sponsored in the Senate by former Labor Secretary Davis, it passed by voice vote and was signed into law on 3 March 1931.[3]
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READ IT! Tell us what initiated this? I'm reading that it was blacks taking the jobs whites could do because blacks were willing to work for less. That's exactly how free market works. But it was desperate times... progressives needed to use the power of government to control others and that's what progressives always do.
I'm curious, if there is no minimum wage, what would the 'market' minimum wage be? Is there anyone actually arguing for doing away with it entirely?
I think raising it from $7.25/hr to $15/hr is too much too quick. And it should be more a local increase based on local economy. The cost of living in some cities is double what it is in others and small businesses will have a much deeper impact from any raise in minimum wage than larger companies. The national minimum wage should go to maybe $11/hr for 3 years, then raised $2/hr every 2 years after up to $15/hr. And small businesses with less than 25 employees should be able to pay a lower national minimum than larger companies. Doubling the minimum in one shot is too much. It is well over due though.
Arguments against a minimum wage are callous. Beef, wood, gasoline, coffee, orange juice, rubber, steel, all these commodities continually go up in price, which is absorbed by all businesses and the economy WITH LITTLE BITCHING. To argue human beings are the ones that should be treated like the throw away commodity so business can bolster it's profit margin is vile.
For all you people who don't know the history of unions and why they are relevant today figure it out. They are the only gathered power that working people have ever had.
Your ignorance of the subject is duly noted.
NOTHING is "absorbed" by the company. Increased costs have to be passed on to the consumer. If you believe anything other than that, you are a fool.
Unions are of no relevance today. Even you know that.
It's already in the thread, we've already debated it, you're just repeating your same denials. That's really all you have... demagoguing and spinning... rinse and repeat.
Yeah, the thing is, the Department of Labor didn't start collecting serious data on unemployment until well after the 1920's, so anything before that is a guess. Heck, even today, they count "non-farm" payrolls... So the employment rate of a largely agrarian population is kind of meaningless.
Two thoughts on this:
One is that when a business hires a black person, it's almost impossible to fire them if they don't work out. I've seen this repeatedly with our customers. They fear being sued or even accused of race discrimination. Such publicity could be damaging to a companies reputation whether true or false.
So what? It should be almost impossible to fire people. But frankly, as I've said, I've seen a black woman fired so that they could create a job for a golfing buddy who had zero qualifications. So, uh, no.
Welcome to the world of At Will Employment and No Unions, buddy. But I want to hear you whine about how your employer is cheating you on health insurance and it's all Obama's fault.
I have the exact same fears when interviewing a possible tenant. If I believe the minority applicant will not work out (for whatever reason) I do have to be concerned about getting sued for race discrimination if I opt to rent to a white applicant instead. If I deny a white applicant an apartment because half of his hair was died purple, and he used the word "dude" in every sentence, there is nothing that person can do to me because I used my instincts to make my decision, and there is no law against it.
Again, housing discrimination is still pretty common, despite best efforts.
Housing Discrimination More Subtle, But Still Absurdly High | DiversityInc
The study sent white, Black, Hispanic and Asian participants out to pose as potential renters or homebuyers, with each taking on a scripted socioeconomic persona that included annual salaries, car and credit card payments, and debt loads that made them equally qualified financially....Overall, the research finds minority renters are told about 10–12 percent fewer units than whites and are shown 4–7 percent fewer places by agents. Among potential homeowners, Blacks are most discriminated against, learning about 17 percent fewer available homes and being shown 18 percent fewer than whites.
Fucking Studies, man, don't you hate when they do fucking studies that prove this minority advantage you guys keep whining about doesn't exist?
These protected class laws work against people more than help them at times. An employers favorite color is green. The worker that can make them the most green is that employers favorite employee. As a landlord, my favorite tenant is one who can get along with all my other tenants; keep their place clean; pay their rent on time or early.
Right, Ray... because A guy with an avatar of a white dude pointing a gun at people is clearly going to be a totally sensible guy on race.
Second thought: I've seen some of our customers opt for black workers only. In fact, a few of our customers totally wiped out their white staff and replaced them with blacks. Why? Because black people can work for lower wages. In their neighborhood, the cost of living is much lower than middle-class white areas. The black workers may not be as productive as their white middle-class counter parts, but the company benefits more with cheaper labor than a little better productivity.
Except black unemployment is still higher than White Unemployment... so, um, no.
Hmm. I'm not really sure what that means. I think freedom is a fairly natural desire, and something most people consider a good thing. I'm wary of attempts to write it off as a fantasy.Well, it's an ideal. A goal. Are you saying it isn't worth pursuing?
I'm saying you fellas need to come on down to planet earth and start talking about issues in a realistic way that doesn't make you look like martians.
It means that society having some common sense redistribution doesn't mean it's NOT a free society. So stop saying that some particular redistribution means the end of free society.
I've seen plenty of people get fired in my time. It mostly had to do with the worker being an idiot or slacking on the job. In fact, we have some of those where I work now, it's just my employer feels sorry for them because if he lets them go, Lord only knows who will provide them with a job.
Yeah. right, Whatever. This would be the employer who won't provide you decent health care coverage. Battered Housewife Conservatism, everyone.
I think your problem is you watch too many movies on television. Employers don't get rid of good employees for golf buddies. They have plenty of golf buddies outside of work. Good employees are hard to find, especially with these millennials. Most employers could care less about race, about gender, about sexual preference. They care about making money.
Guy, I've seen it happen in an office i worked at. They fired a nice black lady who had a college degree and lots of experience to lower headcount enough to create a job for the Golf Buddy who really didn't do much of anything but take two hour lunches with the GM. Meanwhile, the rest of us in the department had more work to do.
The day they got pissed off at me is when I asked why I was still doing a report this clown should have been doing that otherwise had nothing to do with my job.
Companies were not forced to hire black people, there were no laws protecting them from discrimination at the time. So when faced with the prospect of either hiring a black man or white man at the same mandated wage, they typically went with the white man. The Minimum Wage, so proudly promoted by Progressives to this day, was an abhorrently racist policy designed to improve employment opportunity for whites over blacks and minorities.
This was the result of employers with racist mind-sets. If anything the minimum wage highlighted this problem and in this way contributed to the eventual passage of laws protecting minorities from this kind of discrimination.
Davis-Bacon was a racist act that created a discrimination problem progressives had to fix. It was the original minimum wage law.
Sent from my SD4930UR using USMessageBoard.com mobile app
The Davis–Bacon act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Herbert Hoover on March 3, 1931.[2]
Davis and Bacon were both Republicans, as was Hoover.
There were many Republican progressives back then.
Prior to the passage of the federal Davis–Bacon Act (abbreviated DBA), other jurisdictions in the United States had passed laws that required that contractors on public works projects pay the wage that prevailed locally. “In 1891, Kansas adopted a law requiring that ‘not less than the current rate of per diem wages in the locality where the work is performed shall be paid to laborers, workmen, mechanics, and other persons so employed by or on behalf of the state of Kansas’ or of other local jurisdictions. Through the next several decades, other states followed suit, enacting a variety of labor-protective statutes covering workers in contract production.” [3][4]
In 1927, a contractor employed African-American workers from Alabama to build a Veterans' Bureau hospital in the district of Congressman Bacon.[5] Prompted by concerns about the conditions of workers, displacement of local workers by migrant workers, and competitive pressure toward lower wages,[6] Bacon introduced the first version of his bill in 1927.
Over the next few years, Bacon attempted to introduce variations on the prevailing wage bill 13 times.[7][8] Finally, in the midst of the Great Depression, with local workers complaining about cheap labor taking their jobs and Congressmen frustrated that their efforts to bring "pork barrel" projects home to their districts did not result in jobs (and therefore political support) from their constituents,[5] the Hoover Administration requested that Congress reconsider the Act once more as a means of preventing falling wages.[9]Sponsored in the Senate by former Labor Secretary Davis, it passed by voice vote and was signed into law on 3 March 1931.[3]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
READ IT! Tell us what initiated this? I'm reading that it was blacks taking the jobs whites could do because blacks were willing to work for less. That's exactly how free market works. But it was desperate times... progressives needed to use the power of government to control others and that's what progressives always do.
Hoover was a self-proclaimed progressive, and it was also white European immigrants that were willing to work for less.
Any way you look at it, it was the employers who chose who they employed.
If you are trying to say that Republicans do not make good progressives, I agree.
This was the result of employers with racist mind-sets. If anything the minimum wage highlighted this problem and in this way contributed to the eventual passage of laws protecting minorities from this kind of discrimination.
Davis-Bacon was a racist act that created a discrimination problem progressives had to fix. It was the original minimum wage law.
Sent from my SD4930UR using USMessageBoard.com mobile app
The Davis–Bacon act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Herbert Hoover on March 3, 1931.[2]
Davis and Bacon were both Republicans, as was Hoover.
There were many Republican progressives back then.
Prior to the passage of the federal Davis–Bacon Act (abbreviated DBA), other jurisdictions in the United States had passed laws that required that contractors on public works projects pay the wage that prevailed locally. “In 1891, Kansas adopted a law requiring that ‘not less than the current rate of per diem wages in the locality where the work is performed shall be paid to laborers, workmen, mechanics, and other persons so employed by or on behalf of the state of Kansas’ or of other local jurisdictions. Through the next several decades, other states followed suit, enacting a variety of labor-protective statutes covering workers in contract production.” [3][4]
In 1927, a contractor employed African-American workers from Alabama to build a Veterans' Bureau hospital in the district of Congressman Bacon.[5] Prompted by concerns about the conditions of workers, displacement of local workers by migrant workers, and competitive pressure toward lower wages,[6] Bacon introduced the first version of his bill in 1927.
Over the next few years, Bacon attempted to introduce variations on the prevailing wage bill 13 times.[7][8] Finally, in the midst of the Great Depression, with local workers complaining about cheap labor taking their jobs and Congressmen frustrated that their efforts to bring "pork barrel" projects home to their districts did not result in jobs (and therefore political support) from their constituents,[5] the Hoover Administration requested that Congress reconsider the Act once more as a means of preventing falling wages.[9]Sponsored in the Senate by former Labor Secretary Davis, it passed by voice vote and was signed into law on 3 March 1931.[3]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
READ IT! Tell us what initiated this? I'm reading that it was blacks taking the jobs whites could do because blacks were willing to work for less. That's exactly how free market works. But it was desperate times... progressives needed to use the power of government to control others and that's what progressives always do.
Hoover was a self-proclaimed progressive, and it was also white European immigrants that were willing to work for less.
Any way you look at it, it was the employers who chose who they employed.
If you are trying to say that Republicans do not make good progressives, I agree.
No, what I am saying as does the OP, is while these progressive ideas are promoted as "helping" the minorities and working poor, they are actually intended and designed to do the opposite and that is their result.
If you want to win a beer from a progressive in a bar, bet him he can't name the last year black unemployment was lower than white unemployment. It's easy to remember... it was the year before the Davis-Bacon Act... 1930. He won't know the answer because he has been taught to believe blacks have always had higher unemployment than whites.
And yeah... employers ALWAYS decide who they employ... hence the name... duh!
All of this stuff is highly debatable but I want to focus on just one policy that FDR enacted which is still with us today, and is still being paraded around by Progressives as something great and wonderful... The Federal Minimum Wage mandate.
So how do you know what kind of job she did unless you were her supervisor? Just because you have a college degree and experience doesn't mean you're not Fn things up. Plenty of college degree employees lose their job every single day.
The fact that she was a minority is also a problem if she actually got fired and not laid off. Why would a company risk being sued out of business just to get a "golf buddy" in to work there? Seems like a pretty high price to pay.
Why not just move to Europe and try it out yourself? We like our capitalist country. We like freedom, we like less government, and we like having the sky as the limit. Hell, our so-called poor people live better than many working Europeans. You want to live like that, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Why would you care if it's a living wage? And what is a living wage anyway? Have any numbers for us?
Why do you feel you know people's worth better than they do?So how do you know what kind of job she did unless you were her supervisor? Just because you have a college degree and experience doesn't mean you're not Fn things up. Plenty of college degree employees lose their job every single day.
Because I worked with her every day and saw the quality of her work.
The fact that she was a minority is also a problem if she actually got fired and not laid off. Why would a company risk being sued out of business just to get a "golf buddy" in to work there? Seems like a pretty high price to pay.
The reality is, most people don't sue. Illinois is an "At Will" employment state, and this woman was a contract employee. Technically, she didn't work for the company, she worked for the temp agency (even though she had been there nearly a year)
Golfing Buddy didn't have to go through the Temp Agency. What I hear is that he works a whole 6 hours a day these days.
Why not just move to Europe and try it out yourself? We like our capitalist country. We like freedom, we like less government, and we like having the sky as the limit. Hell, our so-called poor people live better than many working Europeans. You want to live like that, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.
Guy, you miss the point. YOur side isn't winning elections anymore. You don't get to say what kind of country we have. I mean you got lucky, you got away with stealing 2000, so you delayed it for a few years, I guess... but European Social Democracy is coming... and you'll be better off for it. You might even get decent health insurance.
Why would you care if it's a living wage? And what is a living wage anyway? Have any numbers for us?
$15.00 an hour would work just fine.
No, what I am saying as does the OP, is while these progressive ideas are promoted as "helping" the minorities and working poor, they are actually intended and designed to do the opposite and that is their result.
Quit lying Joe, Cicero is made up of. Mostly Italians...why do you have the audusity to lie on here so much?
Why do you or rderp bother to lie about Chicago when you know I am on here is anybody's guess..
I know that city and burbs A to Z
To rewrite back to the truth. It is progressives who have written history as a lie. Hugo Black was a former KKK member and lead attorney. Everything you listed in FLSA made it more difficult for minority and poor families to procure gainful employment.
Yes....democrats...To rewrite back to the truth. It is progressives who have written history as a lie. Hugo Black was a former KKK member and lead attorney. Everything you listed in FLSA made it more difficult for minority and poor families to procure gainful employment.
Guy, why do you keep saying "the KKK" as though that's a real point. In the 1920's, the KKK was pretty much the Rotarians... where White Anglo-Saxon Protestants were more concerned about Catholic Immigrants than the Darkies. The 1920's Klan was the one which felt it had to "Get right with Lincoln"... and expanded well beyond the South.
Yes....democrats...
Yes....democrats...
Republicans in the 1920's were just involved with the Klan.
You see, the 1920's Klan was not about beating black folks into submission. That had already been accomplished with Jim Crow and Segregation. The 1920's Klan was about all these Irish and Italian and Polish immigrants coming over and being all Catholic and shit. These people were absolutely HORRIFIED at the thought of a Catholic President, but in 1928, the Democrats nominated one.
Most of you, like myself, have learned about the Great Depression through the prism of public education. We were taught that FDR came into office, implemented his New Deal policies and saved the day... Right? Or, at least that's the way it is portrayed. The actual reality is quite different. As we get older and go to college, we are able to read different accounts of what happened and we learn that many of his policies actually prolonged the Great Depression. In fact, many argue that it might not have ever been a "Great" depression if not for some of the things he did early on. Some have even speculated that if not for WWII, we may have never pulled ourselves out of the death spiral we were in. All of this stuff is highly debatable but I want to focus on just one policy that FDR enacted which is still with us today, and is still being paraded around by Progressives as something great and wonderful... The Federal Minimum Wage mandate.
It is interesting to note what FDR said on the day he signed this legislation into law. He said: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." That was June 16, 1933. Some 83 years later, we have Progressive politicians out there screaming the same line. So, why has this policy not effectively worked to produce what was promised 83 years ago? The Progressives will say that we just haven't raised it enough. So we ask them, how much do you think we need to raise it? They tell us and we raise it. A few years go by and we're once again having the debate and the Progressives are again claiming we didn't raise it enough. For 83 years, we've chased the carrot on the stick in hopes of attaining this elusive "living wage" that will finally solve all our problems. It never does.
In her book, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, author Amity Shlaes makes a revealing and scathing discovery behind the idea of the minimum wage. This is the basis of what I want to talk about here today. While we have always been taught to believe the minimum wage was FDR's attempt to force companies to pay employees a decent wage, that's not the whole truth. Yes, there were some companies exploiting the conditions at the time to profit on the backs of desperate people. We've all watched Grapes of Wrath, we all know the horror stories... Progressives are good at emoting the worst case scenarios. But there were also people like Henry Ford who paid his employees well above the national average because he wanted them to be able to afford his product.
So what is the dirty little secret the Progressives fail to mention? Well, you have to remember, after the stock market crashed in 1929, millions and millions of people were laid off. Unemployment skyrocketed across the nation. This literally affected just about every family in the country. And if you weren't a laborer who earned a paycheck, you were probably a farmer and your plight was even worse. Because of the protectionist tariffs applied by Hoover, a tariff war had devastated agriculture and then came the droughts. So everyone was in bad shape across the board. Also keep in mind, we were not a very homogeneous society back then, there was a great deal of blatant racism and discrimination. Because of the lean financial situation, a lot of capitalists were looking for the cheapest way to provide labor and they found the black man was not afraid to work long hours for meager wages. They seemed to be much more productive for the low wages they demanded... more bang for the buck.
Now here is a trivia question for you... When was the last time black unemployment was lower than white unemployment in the US? Progressives are good at feeding you the propaganda that blacks have always had historically higher unemployment than whites, but that's not true. Shlaes points out, according to the 1930 census data, black unemployment was lower than white unemployment. The implementation of the Federal Minimum Wage was quite simply a measure to improve employment for whites at the expense of blacks. The year following the implementation of this law, we find black unemployment was double that of whites. Companies were not forced to hire black people, there were no laws protecting them from discrimination at the time. So when faced with the prospect of either hiring a black man or white man at the same mandated wage, they typically went with the white man. The Minimum Wage, so proudly promoted by Progressives to this day, was an abhorrently racist policy designed to improve employment opportunity for whites over blacks and minorities.
And just as in days past, the insistence on increasing the minimum wage is doing nothing for the unskilled worker, the low-education minorities, the working poor. When a capitalist is faced with having to hire people at a higher rate, they are going to naturally look at the more-skilled, higher-educated prospects first. And the first people to get the ax when they have to cut jobs are those who are lacking in those areas. So even though we now have all kinds of laws against discrimination based on race, the minimum wage continues to be a racist policy that ensures better job opportunity for skilled whites over lesser-skilled blacks and minorities. All the while, we are being pumped full of lies and propaganda from the Progressives.
I agree....destroy the Savings and Load industry to get money away from we the people....Most of you, like myself, have learned about the Great Depression through the prism of public education. We were taught that FDR came into office, implemented his New Deal policies and saved the day... Right? Or, at least that's the way it is portrayed. The actual reality is quite different. As we get older and go to college, we are able to read different accounts of what happened and we learn that many of his policies actually prolonged the Great Depression. In fact, many argue that it might not have ever been a "Great" depression if not for some of the things he did early on. Some have even speculated that if not for WWII, we may have never pulled ourselves out of the death spiral we were in. All of this stuff is highly debatable but I want to focus on just one policy that FDR enacted which is still with us today, and is still being paraded around by Progressives as something great and wonderful... The Federal Minimum Wage mandate.
It is interesting to note what FDR said on the day he signed this legislation into law. He said: "no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country." That was June 16, 1933. Some 83 years later, we have Progressive politicians out there screaming the same line. So, why has this policy not effectively worked to produce what was promised 83 years ago? The Progressives will say that we just haven't raised it enough. So we ask them, how much do you think we need to raise it? They tell us and we raise it. A few years go by and we're once again having the debate and the Progressives are again claiming we didn't raise it enough. For 83 years, we've chased the carrot on the stick in hopes of attaining this elusive "living wage" that will finally solve all our problems. It never does.
In her book, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, author Amity Shlaes makes a revealing and scathing discovery behind the idea of the minimum wage. This is the basis of what I want to talk about here today. While we have always been taught to believe the minimum wage was FDR's attempt to force companies to pay employees a decent wage, that's not the whole truth. Yes, there were some companies exploiting the conditions at the time to profit on the backs of desperate people. We've all watched Grapes of Wrath, we all know the horror stories... Progressives are good at emoting the worst case scenarios. But there were also people like Henry Ford who paid his employees well above the national average because he wanted them to be able to afford his product.
So what is the dirty little secret the Progressives fail to mention? Well, you have to remember, after the stock market crashed in 1929, millions and millions of people were laid off. Unemployment skyrocketed across the nation. This literally affected just about every family in the country. And if you weren't a laborer who earned a paycheck, you were probably a farmer and your plight was even worse. Because of the protectionist tariffs applied by Hoover, a tariff war had devastated agriculture and then came the droughts. So everyone was in bad shape across the board. Also keep in mind, we were not a very homogeneous society back then, there was a great deal of blatant racism and discrimination. Because of the lean financial situation, a lot of capitalists were looking for the cheapest way to provide labor and they found the black man was not afraid to work long hours for meager wages. They seemed to be much more productive for the low wages they demanded... more bang for the buck.
Now here is a trivia question for you... When was the last time black unemployment was lower than white unemployment in the US? Progressives are good at feeding you the propaganda that blacks have always had historically higher unemployment than whites, but that's not true. Shlaes points out, according to the 1930 census data, black unemployment was lower than white unemployment. The implementation of the Federal Minimum Wage was quite simply a measure to improve employment for whites at the expense of blacks. The year following the implementation of this law, we find black unemployment was double that of whites. Companies were not forced to hire black people, there were no laws protecting them from discrimination at the time. So when faced with the prospect of either hiring a black man or white man at the same mandated wage, they typically went with the white man. The Minimum Wage, so proudly promoted by Progressives to this day, was an abhorrently racist policy designed to improve employment opportunity for whites over blacks and minorities.
And just as in days past, the insistence on increasing the minimum wage is doing nothing for the unskilled worker, the low-education minorities, the working poor. When a capitalist is faced with having to hire people at a higher rate, they are going to naturally look at the more-skilled, higher-educated prospects first. And the first people to get the ax when they have to cut jobs are those who are lacking in those areas. So even though we now have all kinds of laws against discrimination based on race, the minimum wage continues to be a racist policy that ensures better job opportunity for skilled whites over lesser-skilled blacks and minorities. All the while, we are being pumped full of lies and propaganda from the Progressives.
Many of our financial challenges started 30 years earlier when the third edition the Federal Reserve was created. They created a fake runs on the banks and couldn't let a crisis go to waste. We can learn a lot from history if we choose to.
