Around the world, young people may be paid special legal wages below the minimum for a variety of reasons: because
they are in school, because they are new on the job, because they are working in the fields, or simply because they are young. The last criterion rarely stands alone. Usually, the youth wages are framed
as minimums for working students and apprentices and justified on the grounds that an employer should be compensated for their
less productive work rate and the time spent in training them.
In the U.S. since the 1960s, at the federal level, the law provided for students to work
for less than (usually 85% of) the general federal minimum wage. A reduced apprenticeship
wage evolved in the 1980s, taking its most recent form in the 1996 amendment that provides a subminimum wage of $4.25 (which
was 82.5% when the federal minimum was $5.15) for 90 consecutive calendar days to youths under 20 who were newly hired.
This apprentice/under-20 subminimum wage is about as close as our federal law has come to a “youth minimum wage,”
as it is called by the Department of Labor. Pure age-based subminimums were proposed
and discussed at length in the 1970s and 1980s. Proponents argued such a wage
would help fix the problem of youth unemployment. Even President Ronald Reagan, vehemently
opposed to the minimum wage though he was, urged the passage of a youth wage to undo what he viewed as the employment damage
done by the federal minimum. Today, considering the continued stridency of conservatives’ arguments
that minimum wage increases bring on increased unemployment for young workers, especially African American youth, it is surprising
that an across-the-board teen wage has not been brought back again for a new look.
But opponents of such a wage have argued that the advantage gained by a youth wage would amount to discrimination as
employers hired or retained teens in place of bread-winning adults. In 1977 (August
17), in response to a proposed amendment for a 75% minimum wage for workers under 20 years old, The New York Times argued
that “A 40-year-old textile worker with a family has just as much right to a job as a 17-year-old high school dropout. There is no justification for Congress to give employers incentives to hire the young
at the expense of others.” In 1981, a national commission's study of the
federal minimum wage recommended against the adoption of a youth wage. However, as with many predictions about
the labor-market effects of the minimum wage, the fear that a youth wage would take its toll on adults has not been validated.
Around the world, the policies for youth/apprentice minimum wages are quite varied.
Forty-five countries have them, some have a mix of subminimums both for young workers in specific industries (e.g.,
agriculture) as well as for young people in general (usually with 18 as the upper limit), and others have just the age-based
subminimum, often with different levels for the first or second years of employment.
Great Britain is an exception worth
noting. The youth wages there cover young people up to 22, and they are divided
into two categories, a lowest wage for 16- and 17-year olds and a middle rate for those 18 through 21. (This upper limit is expected to be reduced from the 22nd birthday to the 21st, and
an apprentice wage for new workers of any age was removed last year because it was little used.)
In the U.S. the basic minimum wages
federally and in the states are understood to apply to “adults,” those 18 or older, but the situation is fuzzier
than it sounds. People under 18 are covered by various federal and state minimum
wage provisions for high school and college students and for trainees, as well as by child labor laws governing the number
of hours people of certain ages are allowed to work. The recurring phrase in
the federal guidelines is that young workers who meet certain criteria “may be paid” a subminimum wage, with the
implications not only that they can be paid more if the employer wishes but also
that if they don’t meet those criteria they may be entitled to the adult rate.
Thus a working 17-year-old who is not in school, is no longer a trainee,
and does not belong in any other designated category would seem to be eligible for the adult minimum wage.
It is perhaps for this reason that at least three states have been more explicit.
Since 1984, Illinois has provided a youth wage for those under 18 (usually about 85%);
today Michigan does as well; Washington
State requires the adult wage for those 16 and older and reserves the
85% rate for 14- and 15-year-olds. New
Jersey law states that the minimum wage does not apply to those under 18 but the list of exceptions
includes nearly all the jobs where minors work, including farms, restaurants, hotels, laundries, and beauty parlors. Like teenagers themselves, the minimum wage guidelines for those approaching adulthood
are variable and inconsistent.
--Brock Haussamen; revised November 2007
