Congressional Digest

Excerpt

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938, he called it “the most far-reaching, far-sighted program for the benefit of workers ever adopted in this or any other country.”

The Act provided sweeping regulations to protect American workers from exploitation in sweatshops and factories — including workplace protection provisions and a ban on child labor — and created a mandatory Federal minimum wage of 25 cents an hour to maintain “a minimum standard of living necessary for health, efficiency, and general well-being, without substantially curtailing employmen…