The Plight of a Minor League Baseball Player

When people think of athletes, they think of really rich overpaid people who get paid millions of dollars for playing a game for a living. That's not wrong, athletes who are the best at what they do and sometimes not even close to the best (i.e. Jay Cutler) get paid millions of dollars to play a sport for a living. However not all athletes get paid this kind of money or have a lot of luxury in their life. Unless you are a really good international free agent or a very high draft pick, most minor league baseball players actually make below minimum wage. These athletes work about 60-70 hours a week, and make about 1,100 dollars a month which is less than 4$ an hour if they were being paid regular time for the first 40 hours of the week and OT the next 20 hours. Even in the upper levels of the minor leagues athletes only make about 2,250$ which is barely above minimum wage. If each minor league baseball player was paid an extra 10$ an hour for 60 hours a week, it would cost the MLB team who pays their salary and whom they are affiliated with less than 3 million a year. One of the reasons that minor league players do not get paid that much is because they do not have a union, however some minor league baseball players are suing for back pay based on federal and state minimum wage laws.  On June 24th a bill was proposed in the US House of Representatives called "Save America's Pastime Act", this law explicitly stated that the 7500 minor league baseball players would not be entitled to minimum wage or overtime pay. As of September 19th this bill was still in the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, so hopefully the bill will die from inaction and the players will someday be able to be paid at least minimum wage.