Charting the Growth of Labor Law

Labor Week continues here on Lawffice Space with this visual representation of the growth of labor law. Labor and employment law is derived from many sources, such as common law, contracts, the U.S. Constitution, federal regulations, state laws (and constitutions and regulations)... and federal legislation, aka statutes, aka U.S. Code. In particular, Title 29 - Labor.

I'm currently reading the updated-for-2009 Employment Law in a Nutshell. It contains a great measure of the growth of law:

The 1952 edition of United States Code (the official edition) included a Title 29 (Labor) that occupied 58 pages and ended with section 262; by 1970, its 149 pages concluded with section 678; the 1988 edition version of Title 29 was 578 pages in length. The 712 pages of the 2000 edition go through section 3058.

P. 36. I thought it would be fun to chart the number of pages to help visualize the growth:

And in case you're wondering, per the Nutshell: "Case law growth has been similar." By comparison, $58 in 1952 would have the same buying power as about $377 in 2000 (per .gov inflation calculator).

Posted by Philip Miles, an employment lawyer with McQuaide Blasko in State College, Pennsylvania.