Political Quotes

“We are considering the Raise the Wage Act later this week. That proposal will gradually increase the Federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, and after that, adjust for inflation. I thank the gentleman from Nevada (Mr. Horsford) for convening this Special Order to discuss the minimum wage on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus, because this gives us an opportunity to explore the historic and continuing intersection between race and the Federal minimum wage. When the Federal minimum wage was established under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, it purposely excluded many African American workers. Agriculture and most service workers, who are predominantly African American, were exempted from labor law protections. From 1930 to 1940, the share of Southern Blacks who worked in agriculture, in domestic service was over 40 percent. At the same time, the practice of tipping, which had originally enabled American employers to avoid paying wages to newly freed Black workers, was in effect. And the law also treated disabled workers as inferior and permanently codified some forms of labor as lower than minimum wage work. Those exclusions lowered labor standards in the South by excluding a large share of its workforce and denied African American workers access to basic labor protections. But in 1966, Congress finally amended the Fair Labor Standards Act to expand coverage to agriculture, restaurants, nursing homes, and other service workers.…”