The Federal Minimum Wage, Political Thought and Citizenship

Author

Thomas P. Hackman

Degree Type

Honors Capstone Project

Date of Submission

Spring 5-1-2008

Capstone Advisor

Keith Bybee

Honors Reader

Grant Reeher

Capstone Major

Political Science

Capstone College

Citizenship and Public Affairs

Audio/Visual Component

no

Capstone Prize Winner

no

Won Capstone Funding

no

Honors Categories

Social Sciences

Subject Categories

American Politics | Comparative Politics | Other Political Science | Political Science

Abstract

Several questions about the minimum wage have not been answered adequately by scholars. The wage’s origins, its reasons for federal passage, the roots of its decline, and its future prospects are all up for debate in the current literature. This paper weighs in on these questions, hoping to improve the debate surrounding them. In the process, the importance of linking the wage to citizenship becomes clear. As the political thought of the issue has moved away from conceiving of minimum wages as tools for reaffirming the status of low wage workers, support for the wage, and its monetary value, has declined. The need for a more responsible scholarship about the minimum wage, one without ideologically biased preconceptions, is also addressed.

Recommended Citation

Hackman, Thomas P., "The Federal Minimum Wage, Political Thought and Citizenship" (2008). Honors Capstone Projects - All. 537.
https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/537

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.