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Grade 5 Social Studies · World 2: Bigger, Better, Faster · Level 20
Selling Your Labor
Explain wages, and what private businesses do.
Warm-up, learn, try it together, practice, then a quick check. About 15 minutes.
What children learn in Level 20
- All those mills and meatpacking plants needed workers. Here's an idea from economics: a worker sells labor to a business.
- Labor is the work people do. The business pays for it with wages. Those wages become the worker's income.
- A private business makes goods, like bread and shoes, or provides services, like haircuts. It hopes to take in more money than it spends. What's left over is its profit.
- Around 1900, many workers had long days, low pay, and unsafe jobs. Some children worked too. Workers joined together in unions to ask for better conditions.
- Pay depends on skill, training, and how many people can do the job. That's why going to school can raise what you earn later.
Georgia Standards of Excellence in Social Studies:
- SS5E3.b — Describe how people earn income by selling their labor to businesses.
- SS5E2.b — Describe the private business function in producing goods and services.