Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches #1499: The attack on minimum wage and local control

  Minimum wage! Minimum wage! Minimum wage! I know minimum wage firsthand. I shared a little bit of my minimum wage experiences with my fellow senators this past week.

  I went to the podium in the well of the Alabama Senate to speak against a bill that would prohibit cities and counties from enacting ordinances to establish minimum wages. I shared how I worked for $3 a day in the 1950s when the minimum wage was 75 cents, and then $1 per hour because agriculture workers were excluded from minimum wage laws. Some worked for even less than $3.00 a day because cotton pickers were paid 2.5 to 3 cents per pound. When we picked Irish potatoes (white potatoes), we were paid 2.5 to 3 cents per half-bushel. If we did not pick more than 100 pounds of cotton or pick up more than 100 half-bushels per day of potatoes, we did not get close to even $3 per day. I chopped cotton for $3 per day. I broke corn for $3 per day. As you can see, I know wages way below minimum wage.