California courts have long upheld below-minimum wage pay for prison inmates working a wide range of jobs. A 2024 ballot measure that would ban forced labor could alter those decisions.

But wage slavery isn’t only about how much people make; it’s about the freedom to walk away to choose a better option. As a society, we owe it to ourselves to pursue freedom from wage slavery.

But wage slavery isn’t only about how much people make; it’s about the freedom to walk away to choose a better option. As a society, we owe it to ourselves to pursue freedom from wage slavery.

It’s long past time to end this vestige of slavery. Carrie N. Baker is a professor in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender at Smith College and a regular contributor to Ms. Magazine.

The wage Slavery In the decade between 1846 and 1855, more than three million immigrants came to the United States, with a vast majority of them settling in the free states of the North.

In the booming textile mills of 19th-century America, young women were promised opportunity but found exploitation instead.