The minimum wage: a reference handbook

Background and history : Introduction ; Reasons for minimum wage ; First minimum wages ; The road to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ; Expansion of minimum wage in the United States ; Contraction of minimum wage in the United States ; Minimum wages in Europe ; The current context ; Analysis

Problems, controversies, and solutions : Introduction ; Competing minimum wage models: Standard model, Monopsony model, Efficiency wage model ; Unemployment consequences ; Problem of data ; Measuring the minimum wage population ; Politicization of data ; Source of low wages ; Alternatives to minimum wage ; Solutions? ; Analysis

Perspectives : Introduction ; The early institutionalists and the positive case for a minimum wage / Bruce Kaufman ; Minimum wages and living wages / Stephanie Luce ; Minimum wage: good intentions and bad results / Antony Davies ; Policymakers should exercise maximum caution on the minimum wage / Michael Saltsman ; A strong national wage floor is essential to protecting workers, fighting inequality, and maintaining a growing U.S. economy / David Cooper ; Raising the minimum wage would help, not hurt, our economy / David Madland ; Molly Moon's minimum wage perspective / Molly Moon Neitzel ; Minimum wages and economic inequality / Thomas Volscho

Profiles : Introduction ; The progressives: Louis Brandeis, John Bates Clark, John R. Commons, Edward Filene; Samuel Gompers, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Richard A. Lester, Sidney Webb ; The legislators: William Connery and Hugo Black, Franklin Delano Roosevelt : The academicians: Richard V. Burkhauser, David Card, Arindrajit Dube, David Neumark and William Wascher, Michael Reich ; Contemporary activist organizations and individuals: AFL-CIO, Economic Policy Institute, Barbara Ehrenreich, Employment Policies Institute, Naquasia LeGrand, National Association of Manufacturers, National Employment Law Project, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Data and documents : Introduction ; Data: Figure 5.1 percentage of wage workers and percentage of minimum wage workers, Table 5.1 minimum wage in actual and 2015 adjusted dollars, Table 5.2 minimum wage workers by age and gender for 2012, Figure 5.2 minimum wage as a percentage of average annual hourly wage and minimum wage as a percentage of poverty line, Table 5.3 labor force figures, Table 5.4 demographics, Table 5.5 individual income in the United States by contour, Table 5.6 share of labor market earning in each contour (percentage), Table 5.7 minimum wages around the world (2013 dollars), Table 5.8 state minimum wages as of January 1, 2015 ; Documents: 1914 Chicago Debate League on minimum wage, Report on economic conditions of the south, Franklin Roosevelt's defense of the FLSA, Report of the National Advisory Commission on civil disorders (1968), Excerpts from the 1981 minimum wage study commission, President Barack Obama's remarks advocating for a minimum wage, Excerpts from the 2014 congressional budget office report on the minimum wage

Chronology.