The January 28 ruling covers 200 workers, mostly immigrants born in West Africa. Duane Reade attorneys argued the workers were not employees of the company, but were employed by subcontractors.

The judge’s ruling noted that while Duane Reade had paid $50 to $60 a day to two subcontractors for each worker, the subcontractors paid the deliverymen less than $3 an hour. The company cannot use outsourcing to evade "obligations under the Fair Labor Standards Act," the judge said.

Meanwhile the Economic Policy Institute reported the value of the minimum wage in 2002 was 19 percent lower than in 1981. The report said that families with incomes of $25,000 or less were dependent on workers earning minimum wage for 76 percent of their total weekly income.

Working full-time for the minimum wage, a worker earns $10,712 per year. The official poverty line for a family of four is $17,603. Some 68 percent of workers earning the minimum wage are adults; 42 percent work full time; 61 percent are women; and about a third are Black or Hispanic. These facts contrast sharply with the image painted in the media of workers earning minimum wage as teenage part-timers working to supplement their pocket money.

Democrats submitted legislation to Congress during the last session which would increase the minimum wage to $6.65 over 18 months. The increase would still leave the minimum wage with less purchasing power than it had in 1981.

Republicans countered with a proposal for a $1 raise over three years, with provisions to allow states to opt out of the law.

The Fair Labor Standards Act establishing the minimum wage was passed in 1938. The law does not include provisions to raise the minimum wage to match living cost increases. Raises require a new act of Congress signed by the president. The last increases occurred in 1996 and 1997, when the level went from $4.25 to $5.15.  
 
 
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