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Showing posts with label Labor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Labor. Show all posts

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Charts: Why Fast-Food Workers Are Going on Strike

Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

This Thursday, fast-food workers in more than 100 cities are planning a one-day strike to demand a "livable" wage of $15 an hour. They have a point: The lowest-paid Americans are struggling to keep up with the cost of living—and they have seen none of the gains experienced by the country's top earners. While average incomes of the top 1 percent grew more than 270 percent since 1960, those of the bottom 90 percent grew 22 percent. And the real value of the minimum wage barely budged, increasing a total of 7 percent over those decades.
More of the numbers behind the strike and the renewed calls to raise the minimum wage:
Median hourly wage for fast-food workers nationwide:
$8.94/hour
Increase in real median wages for food service workers since 1999:
$0.10/hour
Last time the federal minimum wage exceeded $8.94/hour (in 2012 dollars):
1968
Change in the real value of the minimum wage since 1968:
-22%
Median age of fast-food workers:
29
Median age of female fast-food workers:
32
Percentage of fast-food workers who are women:
65%
Percentage of fast-food workers older than 20 who have kids:
36%
Income of someone earning $8.94/hour:
$18,595/year
Federal poverty line for a family of three:
$17,916/year
Income of someone earning $15/hour:
$31,200/year
Income needed for a "secure yet modest" living for a family with two adults and one child…
In the New York City area: $77,378/year
In rural Mississippi: $47,154/year
Growth in average real income of the top 1 percent since 1960:
271%
What the...
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Wednesday, December 4, 2013

The Minimum Wage in America Is Pretty Damn Low

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.motherjones.com

Everyone's talking about the minimum wage today. I'm in favor of raising it, and I always have been, but a picture is worth a thousand words, so here's a picture for you. Courtesy of the OECD, it shows the minimum wage in various rich countries as a percentage of the average wage. The United States isn't quite the lowest, but we're pretty damn close.
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Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Why Are Children Working in American Tobacco Fields?

Child Labor prohibitions are enforced through workers' compensation acts. Unfortunately that is an inefficient enforcement mechanism. Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.thenation.com

Young farm workers are falling ill from “green tobacco sickness” while the industry denies it and government lets it happen.



This article was reported in partnership with the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute.

The air was heavy and humid on the morning the three Cuello sisters joined their mother in the tobacco fields. The girls were dressed in jeans and long-sleeve shirts, carried burritos wrapped in aluminum foil, and had no idea what they were getting themselves into. “It was our first real job,” says Neftali, the youngest. She was 12 at the time. The middle sister, Kimberly, was 13. Yesenia was 14.
Their mother wasn’t happy for the company. After growing up in Mexico, she hadn’t crossed the border so that her kids could become farmworkers. But the girls knew their mom was struggling. She had left her husband and was supporting the family on the minimum wage. If her girls worked in the tobacco fields, it would quadruple the family’s summer earnings. “My mom tends to everybody,” Neftali says. This was a chance to repay that debt.
The sisters trudged into dense rows of bright green tobacco plants. Their task was to tear off flowers and remove small shoots from the stalks, a process called “topping and suckering.” They walked the rows, reaching deep into the wet leaves, and before long their clothes were soaked in the early morning dew. None of them knew that the dew represented a...
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Thursday, November 7, 2013

Wage Statistics for 2012

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.ssa.gov

The national average wage index (AWI) is based on compensation (wages, tips, and the like) subject to Federal income taxes, as reported by employers on Forms W-2. Beginning with the AWI for 1991, compensation includes contributions to deferred compensation plans, but excludes certain distributions from plans where the distributions are included in the reported compensation subject to income taxes. We call the result of including contributions, and excluding certain distributions, net compensation. The table below summarizes the components of net compensation for 2012.Net compensation components for 2012


The "raw" average wage, computed as net compensation divided by the number of wage earners, is $6,529,097,960,690.75 divided by 153,632,290, or $42,498.21. Based on data in the table below, about 67.1 percent of wage earners had net compensation less than or equal to the $42,498.21 raw average wage. By definition, 50 percent of wage earners had net compensation less than or equal to the median wage, which is estimated to be $27,519.10 for 2012.
Distribution of wage earners by level of net...
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Monday, December 10, 2012

The New Reality |As goes the Labor market, so goes workers compensation

Paul Krugman
Paul Krugman points out in the New York Times today, that robots are eliminating the labor market. The consrquences of the economic sustainabily of workers compensation may place the entire system into peril.

"As best as I can tell, there are two plausible explanations, both of which could be true to some extent. One is that technology has taken a turn that places labor at a disadvantage; the other is that we’re looking at the effects of a sharp increase in monopoly power. Think of these two stories as emphasizing robots on one side, robber barons on the other."

Robots and Robber Barons

Thursday, April 19, 2012

April 28th - Workers Memorial Day

April 28th is Worker Memorial Day. Observed each year, the event is a time to remember those who have suffered and died on the job, and it is a time to renew efforts to create safer workplaces.

For more information click here to visit the AFL-CIO site and/or The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health site.

Memorial for Workers
I write these words of honor, for those who gave their lives; 
And for their families, their husbands and their wives. 
For those whose lives were spent, doing what they must 
Working for a living like every one of us. 
Their time cut short, by things that didn’t have to be; 
To make the workplace safer, for people like you and me. 
To make sure their stories will never go untold; 
To always keep their memories from ever growing cold. 
We must remember the price they all had to pay; 
When we honor the men and women on Workers Memorial Day. 
Mike Baird
Lodge 21, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers
Read April 28, 1995