Minimum Wage Minimum wage is the lowest rate employees may legally pay for an hour of labor (Merriam, 741). The United States has a minimum wage law to guarantee minimum hourly wages and to prevent the exploitation of workers and provide unskilled and part-time workers with a wage floor. People have argues that the minimum wage has become less of a safety net for primary earners in poor families than a floor for the wages of teenagers and other secondary earners from higher-income families. In 1933, there were a long series of “Conferences on the Minimum Wage,” established by the Department of Labor. There we