In 1938, Congress passed, and FDR signed into law, the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established the first federal minimum wage and overtime protections. And that, to the extent that most Americans think about the minimum wage, was that. To be sure, Congress occasionally raises the minimum wage (though they’ve got a long way to go to make it a living wage), but the national law, covering all workers, has long since been established, right?

Not quite.

Carina Diaz worked in fields in upstate New York for seven years, picking tomatoes, planting onions, and growing other specialty vegetable crops like beets. During that time, she says, she and the other women she worked with were sexually harassed by their supervisor and his friend. Her supervisor groped the women, made vulgar comments and threatened them. She says she had a boss who threatened to deport undocumented workers because he didn't want to pay them bonuses they were due. In general, the supervisors acted as if the harassment were acceptable because they gave the women jobs, and the women were afraid to report the abuse because they needed the money and didn't trust law enforcement.

Yesterday, the Republican-controlled Michigan Legislature passed a bill that sets a dangerous precedent for jobless workers and continues Midwest governments’ assault on the vulnerable middle class. While the bill would continue extended unemployment insurance for those already unemployed, it cuts the time new claimants can receive benefits -- from 26 weeks to 20. This would make it the first state to go below the national standard of 26 weeks.

Yesterday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released data on the number of job openings as of the last day of November. The number, a mere 3.2 million, is a drop in the bucket compared to the more than 14.5 million Americans still relying on unemployment insurance. That number doesn't count all those Americans who are no longer collecting unemployment because they're no longer eligible for benefits or because they've given up looking for work. It also doesn't count the high number of Americans who would like full-time work but are struggling to piece together a living instead from part-time jobs without benefits.

Greg Mankiw, claiming agnosticism about whether or not unemployment insurance should be renewed, offers some bad arguments against it:

[W]hen I hear economists advocate the extension of UI to 99 weeks, I am tempted to ask, would you also favor a further extension to 199 weeks, or 299 weeks, or 1099 weeks? If 99 weeks is better than 26 weeks, but 199 is too much, how do you know?