FDR: how he changed America--and still affects your life today: no President has had as great an impact on everyday rife in America today as , who took office 75 years ago this spring.

• Author: Bilyeu, Suzanne
• Position: TIMES PAST - Franklin D. Roosevelt

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At your after-school job, you probably earn at least the minimum wage of $5.85 an hour. Your grandfather may get a Social Security check every month. And if your room works late, there's a good chance she s paid overtime.

The minimum wage, Social Security, and overtime pay are just three of the countless aspects of American life today that are largely the handiwork of a single President: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who took office 75 years ago, in March 1933.

During his 12 years in the White House--a period that included the Great Depression and World War II FDR revolutionized the role of the government in business and the economy, and by extension, in the lives of all Americans.

The legislation he pushed though Congress as part of his New Deal not only helped ease the Depression, it also formed the underpinnings of the modem welfare state.

Admirers credit him with rescuing capitalism and America's way of life at a time when widespread economic misery made socialism and Communism more appealing to many. Detractors argue that he opened the door to a government that was too big, too powerful, and too costly for taxpayers. But few deny his impact on the United States, then and now.

"No other President affects our lives today as much as FDR," says William E. Leuchtenburg, author of The FDR Years. "There is the growth of the presidency, the welfare state--including old-age security--and government regulation of so many areas of private life."

Here are some examples of how FDR's legacy influences American life in the 21st century:

MINIMUM WAGE

* If you work weekends or after school, at Wal-Mart or McDonald's, you're entitled to earn at least the federal minimum wage. In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act, part of Roosevelt's New Deal., established the first federal minimum wage: 25 cents an hour. This past Jury, it was raised from $5.15 to $5.85, as part of a three-step increase to $7.25 in 2009. (Some states and cities have their own minimum-wage or "riving wage" laws, which set the minimum higher than the federal level.)

9 T0 5

* The Fair Labor Standards Act--which Roosevelt called "the most far-reaching ... program for the benefit of workers ever adopted in this or any other country"--not only set a minimum wage, it literally created the 9-to-5 workday we're so familiar with today. Until. 1938, many people worked six days a week. The Act mandated a 5-day, 40-hour work week, with overtime pay (usually time and a half)...