Ford Gave Minimum Wage A Boost On This Day In 1914

On this day in 1914, the Ford Motor Company rolled out a series of initiatives targeted at improving the lives of its workers. Along with boosting the company's minimum wage to five dollars per day, Ford also unveiled plans to trim its work day to eight hours. Whatever the merits of these measures, they were something of a necessary corrective, designed to offset the potentially "dehumanizing" effects of Ford's recent move to perpetually operating mode of assembly-line production. Though the company was now able to churn out 2,000 autos a day, the quicksilver pace took a severe toll on FordÝs assembly-line workers.