These License Plates Don't Stamp Themselves
Minimum wage-hike fever is in the air; but not, for now, at America's prisons
Douglas R. Loving contended his job as a drying machine operator qualified him for protection under the Fair Labor Standards Act—meaning he should get the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour—because the act didn't exempt prisoners.
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. It upheld a lower court decision's to throw out Loving's lawsuit as frivolous, writing that prisoners are not employees and not entitled to minimum wages.
Reason has been suggesting alternatives to a minimum wage hike for years, although these ideas might not apply to workers in the correctional system.