So says Dean Kalahar, here:
The precursor to the modern minimum wage law began in 1931 with the Davis Bacon Act; which allowed whites to discriminate against blacks in the workplace because it protected the wages of unionized white construction workers from competition with black workers. Stunningly, this remnant of Jim Crow is still on the books. The first federal minimum-wage law, the Fair Labor Standards Act, passed in 1938 under FDR.
Fast forward to today where President Obama asked for the minimum wage to be increased to $9.00 hour in his State of the Union Address. Let's get this straight; the first African American President of the United States advocates a Jim Crow law that increases unemployment to the very low skilled young minorities he claims he wants to help? When did a wage of zero become more of a "fair share" than a job and opportunity? That's just a shameful irony, Machiavellian politics, or shear [sic] ignorance.
Or maybe that's Obama's white half talking.
Or maybe that's Obama's white half talking.