In the United States, statutory minimum wages were first introduced nationally in 1938 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 is the specific act that establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, youth employment, and recordkeeping standards affecting full-time and part-time workers in the private sector and in Federal, State, and local governments.

Initially, when the federal minimum wage first became law, it was only 25 cents. Adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage set at 25 cents an hour works out to about $4.19 per hour in today’s money. At the federal level, the minimum wage was last increased on July 24, 2009, when it rose from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour, the last step of a three-step increase approved by Congress in 2007. Before 2007, the minimum wage had been stuck at $5.15 per hour for just over ten years.

Overall, the minimum wage was designed by President Roosevelt to create a minimum standard of living to protect the health and well-being of all workers employed within the United States.

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