Upon receiving Jerald Waltman's book, the first thing I read was the dedication to the author's "coworkers at A. & W. Root Beer, Ruston, Louisiana, 1963­67." I like root beer, but I wondered whether a mistake had been made in sending me this book to review. It did not take long to realize no mistake had been made. This is a book that treats minimum wage as symbolic politics, but, more important, it entirely reexamines public policy.