The issue of government mandated minimum wages did not begin in
             America. Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, and France all had some
             sort of minimum wage program before it began in the United States with the
             Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) in 1938 (Nordlund, 1997, pp. xv, and 1).
             While the FLSA was completely necessary legislation in its day, today, the
             Federal Minimum Wage, which was a part of the FLSA, is nothing if not
             controversial. Many experts believe the minimum wage is no longer
             necessary and even adds to unemployment and poverty. The case against the
             minimum wage is strong today, for many reasons. One economic expert notes,
             These [minimum wage] programs are one element in the fabric of the
             economy that affects the relationship between economic sectors and
             individual economic participants but whose impacts are large or small,
             depending on the character of the legislation, the state of the
             economy, the level of enforcement, and a host of other variables
             As the writer notes, minimum wage programs are simply one "element in the
             fabric" of the nation's economy, but to keep the fabric whole, many believe
             the minimum wage programs must be modified greatly, or erased altogether,
             because when wages go up, workers lose jobs, and also lose employment
             opportunities, as other experts note. "A 1998 study by Burkhauser, Couch,
             and Wittenberg reaffirms earlier findings that raising the minimum wage
             reduces teenage employment, with a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage
             leading to employment losses of 1 to 3 percent" (Editors, 1999). Many
             Americans believe increasing the minimum wage will increase the income of
             America's lowest paid workers, but this is not always the case. Increasing
             the minimum wage often causes employers to cut back positions to avoid
             increased costs, so increasing the minimum wage can actually lead to
             minimum wage earners l...