San Antonio College Library

Minimum wages exist in more than one hundred countries, both industrialized and developing. The United States passed a federal minimum wage law in 1938 and has increased the minimum wage and its coverage at irregular intervals ever since; in addition, as of the beginning of 2008, thirty-two states and the District of Columbia had established a minimum wage higher than the federal level, and numerous other local jurisdictions had in place "living wage"...

Millions of Americans work full-time, year-round, for poverty-level wages. In 1998, the author decided to join them. She was inspired in part by the rhetoric surrounding welfare reform, which promised that a job, any job, could be the ticket to a better life. But how does anyone survive, let alone prosper, on six to seven dollars an hour? To find out, she left her home, took the cheapest lodgings she could find, and accepted whatever jobs she was...

"Examines a broad range of state and federal programs providing cash or in-kind benefits to low-wage workers, low-income families, and families making the transition from welfare to work to assess the ability of the work support system to lead to self-sufficiency"--Provided by publisher.

In Created Unequal, Galbraith explains the relationship between economic policy and the structure of pay. He shows why "knowledge" workers have done well and why service workers have not why consumer industries have lost ground and why the true service economy is smaller than you think. Whether you are in the aircraft industry (rich) or the garment business (poor), medicine (up-and-coming despite HMOs) or residential construction (in deep decline),...

Topics covered include wage subsidies and public employment, changes in modes of pay, employment regulations.