The Ultimate Minimum Wage Quiz

In the 1890s, a century after the exploitation of factory workers began with the Industrial Revolution, Australia and New Zealand introduced minimum wage laws.

The minimum wage laws established working conditions that today we take for granted: an eight-hour workday, overtime pay and a minimum hourly wage.

In 1938, Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced minimum wage regulations with his Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). It took years before the Supreme Court allowed it, after first ruling that it violated the "liberty of contract" between employer and employee.

The federal minimum wage is $ 7.25 an hour, as of July 24, 2009. The first minimum wage, in 1938, was $ 0.25 an hour.

Many states have their own minimum wage laws, Kansas being the lowest with $ 2.65 an hour and Washington having the highest with $8.55 an hour. Not to worry though, the employer must pay the higher of the two amounts.

You need to work eight hours a week, and earn at least $ 1,500 a year from a single employer.

If a waiter, or someone in another "tipped" profession, earns at least $30 worth of tips in a month, then he or she needs to be paid only $2.13 an hour. If they earn less than that in tips, then the minimum wage applies to them.

Because they earn salaries, and not hourly wages, managers, executives and other professionals are exempt from the minimum wage regulations.

A company needs to make at least $ 500,000 a year to be obligated to pay its workers the minimum wage.

In many European countries there are no minimum wage laws; instead they rely on labor unions to negotiate better working conditions for employees.

The British minimum wage laws are broader than those of the U.S. They cover all employees.

The minimum hourly wage for an adult over 22 in Britain is £ 5.73. For someone aged between 18 and 21 it is £ 4.77 an hour, and for a youth (16-17), its £ 3.53 an hour.

Minimum wage laws were introduced in China in 2004. They went up significantly in 2008.

Tax rebates may be a better alterative to minimum wage laws. This way the burden of eliminating poverty falls on all tax payers equally, instead of on business owners.

Critics of minimum wage laws say that these laws are the biggest culprit in cost-push inflation, because employers must raise the price of the goods they produce to compensate for the increased wages they are obligated to pay.