[criddell]

> We're a republic

That's true, but if the issue is important enough to lots of people, those people will elect representatives to enact the policy they want made.

> As we can see by many companies in the United States willfully offering such perks without legal mandate

If it were many companies, then this wouldn't be news.

[cookiecaper]

>That's true, but if the issue is important enough to lots of people, those people will elect representatives to enact the policy they want made.

Yes, but it's more complicated than that. The federal government isn't legally allowed to mandate these types of things under the Constitution, except insofar as they can claim it relates to "regulating interstate commerce" (which they do for almost everything these days). Most employment law is state-level, where there is not necessarily a constitutional prohibition on this type of action (each state has its own constitution, YMMV) and where there's a reasonable possibility of jurisdictional competition to keep things healthy.

For example, there is no federal minimum wage (the term "Federal Minimum Wage" refers to the lowest amount of money that the government pays its employees, not a legally-required minimum wage nationwide). Each state has its own minimum wage.

>If it were many companies, then this wouldn't be news.

It's news mostly because AMEX paid its PR people to put this out. It's good press and may cause talented job seekers to look at their openings. There are a lot of news reports about routine things every day, because much of the news is bought by PR firms.

Secondarily, it's news because it comports with the political agenda of the news editors and gives them an opportunity to say things like "America is behind other developed nations in this area", when that's anything but an objective conclusion (because whether this policy is "ahead" or "behind" is a subjective evaluation).

[criddell]

> Each state has its own minimum wage.

That's true, but if a state has a minimum wage it can only effectively be higher than the federal minimum wage.

From https://www.dol.gov/whd/minwage/q-a.htm:

> Where an employee is subject to both the state and federal minimum wage laws, the employee is entitled to the higher minimum wage rate.

The rule is from the Fair Labor Standards Act.

[cookiecaper]

After further research, I stand corrected. The federal minimum wage is a minimum wage that is applicable to workers throughout the United States, not just employees of the federal government. Constitutionally, I'm not sure how that works, but I'm sure it's not unlike other blatant abuses of Constitutional structures. I'd bet there's a case I could look up somewhere, but don't have the time or inclination right now.

That makes it a bad example of what I was talking about, but it's now a good example of how the foundational principles of the Union have been selectively permeated for political convenience. That's sad, IMO, and not something we should seek to replicate in further employment legislation.