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Showing posts with label Minimum wage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Minimum wage. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

New Jersey’s Minimum Wage to Increase to $13/Hour for Most Employees on Jan. 1

New Jersey’s statewide minimum wage will increase by $1 to $13 per hour for most employees, effective January 1, 2022. The increase will be reflected in higher workers’ compensation benefit rates as those are paired with the State Average Weekly Wage (SAWW).

Thursday, July 4, 2019

Fighting Wage Preemption: How Workers Have Lost Billions in Wages and How We Can Restore Local Democracy

Today’s post is shared from nelp.org

Local governments, like cities and counties, have long implemented local policies—including higher minimum wages—to improve economic conditions.

Local efforts to raise the wage floor have seen a tremendous upsurge over the past six years, mostly as a result of the Fight for $15 movement, which began in late November 2012 in New York when fast food workers walked off the job, demanding

$15 and a union. The movement quickly spread throughout the country, and its impact has been remarkable: More than 40 cities and counties have adopted their own minimum wage laws, and as of late 2018, an estimated 22 million workers have won $68 billion in raises since the Fight for $15 began.

In response to this explosion in local minimum wage activity, a number of states— particularly those with conservative legislatures—have sought to shut down these gains by adopting “preemption” laws that prohibit cities and counties from adopting local minimum wages, as well as a wide range of other pro-worker policies. The state preemption of local minimum wages disenfranchises workers and exacerbates racial inequality when it disproportionately impacts communities of color who are overrepresented among low-wage workers1 and who often represent majorities in our cities and large metro areas.

The most significant force behind the recent wave of preemption laws nationwide is the corporate lobby. Failing to stop the adoption of local pro-worker laws, the corporate lobby has persuaded state-level lawmakers to revoke the underlying local authority to adopt such policies, in some cases rolling back wage increases that were already enacted by city and county governments. In doing so, the corporate lobby has not only captured the political lever closest to the people (their city or county government), it has also hampered the democratic process at its most intimate level.

A total of 25 states have statutes preempting local minimum wage laws. To date, 12 cities and counties in six states (Alabama, Iowa, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, and Wisconsin) have approved local minimum wage laws only to see them invalidated by state statute, harming hundreds of thousands of workers in the process, many of whom face high levels of poverty.

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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thomson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thomson-Reuters). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman 1.973.696.7900jon@gelmans.com has been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

Wednesday, July 3, 2019

NJ Governor Murphy Marks Statewide Minimum Wage Increase Taking Effect Today

Governor Phil Murphy today lauded New Jersey’s historic increase in the minimum wage from $8.85 per hour to $10 per hour taking effect today, July 1st, 2019, putting our state on a path to a $15 minimum wage.

“Today marks a monumental step on our path to a stronger and fairer New Jersey,” said Governor Murphy. “Our economy grows when everyone can participate in it – every hardworking New Jerseyan deserves a fair wage that allow them to put food on the table and gas in their car. Together, we are making New Jersey more affordable and giving over a million New Jerseyans a pathway to the middle class.”

Under the law Governor Murphy signed in February, after today's increase, the statewide minimum wage will continue to increase by $1 per hour every January 1st until it reaches $15 per hour on January 1, 2024.

For seasonal workers and employees at small businesses with five or fewer workers, the base minimum wage will reach $15 per hour by January 1, 2026. By January 1, 2028, workers in these groups will receive the minimum wage inclusive of inflation adjustments that take place from 2024 to 2028, equalizing the minimum wage with the main cohort of New Jersey workers.

For agricultural workers, the base minimum wage will increase to $12.50 per hour by January 1, 2024. No later than March 31, 2024, the New Jersey Labor Commissioner and Secretary of Agriculture will jointly decide whether to recommend that the minimum wage for agricultural workers increase to $15 per hour by January 1, 2027, as specified in the bill. If they cannot come to an agreement, a third member, appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Senate, will break the tie. If there is a recommendation to disapprove of the scheduled increases or suggest an alternative pathway, the Legislature will have the ability to implement that recommendation by passage of a concurrent resolution.

“Today’s minimum wage increase to $10 per hour gives low-wage families firmer ground on which to stand and moves us closer to Governor Murphy’s vision of a stronger, fairer economy. The law’s multi-year phase-in to $15 per hour gives the state’s businesses the time they need to adjust to the higher wage requirements,” said Labor Commissioner Robert Asaro-Angelo.

"The fight for a living wage takes a step in the right direction today, when New Jersey's minimum wage will be raised to $10,” said Sue Altman, CEO of Working Families. “This is a long-fought victory by labor, grassroots activists, and advocates, and we commend Governor Murphy and legislative leadership for taking action. With every raise in the wage toward our fight for $15, we secure greater economic justice for working people across New Jersey, who can now support their families by covering the basics and buying goods and services from New Jersey businesses."

“New Jersey small business owners understand what’s good for their employees and businesses, and that starts by putting New Jersey workers on the road to be paid a livable wage,” said Raj Bath, Business Representative for the New Jersey Main Street Alliance. “Paying workers a decent livable wage means they will play a vital part in the local economy which is a win-win for Main Street. New Jersey will have a thriving economic future as long as we continue to invest in our middle-class workers and our Main Street.”

“As SEIU’s flagship campaign, 32BJ SEIU worked tirelessly for years to see the minimum wage in New Jersey begin its rise to $15.00,” said Kevin Brown, SEIU 32BJ Vice President and New Jersey District Director. “Today our uphill battle finally pays off as the lowest paid people in our community earning $8.85/hour take home $10.00/hour instead. This is a real and meaningful change for the lives of over one million working families who will benefit from the long-lasting economic impacts of this legislation. Our union sisters and brothers rallied, canvassed and fought to raise the bar for the entire state because we know that a rising tide lifts all boats, and it starts from the bottom. We thank Governor Murphy, the legislature, and the support of labor allies behind us. We will celebrate again when the minimum wage increases to $11.00 on January 1, 2020, and 32BJ will continue to lead in the fight for working people, immigrants and people of color who deserve better.”

“At times, we don't even know if we'll be able to pay rent with what we make,” said Rosa Fernandez of New Labor. “With a minimum wage raise now and every January until 2024, workers around New Jersey can make ends meet and breathe a little easier.”

“As the minimum wage begins to increase on July 1, New Jersey is taking an historic step towards a dignity wage for about one million workers who are mostly people of color, women, and low-wage workers,” said Renee Koubiadis, Executive Director of the Anti-Poverty Network of New Jersey. “With the increase to $10 an hour, more individuals and families will be able to afford basic needs instead of going without.”

"Raising New Jersey's minimum wage to $15 an hour is one of the most consequential, pro-worker policies passed in decades," said Brandon McKoy, President of New Jersey Policy Perspective. "With the first increase to $10.00 an hour, approximately half a million workers will see a boost in their take home pay. This will help alleviate poverty and promote spending in local communities, benefiting workers, their children, and businesses alike."

"This next increase in the minimum wage will help many more working families put food on the table and pay bills,” said Dena Mottola Jaborska, Associate Director, New Jersey Citizen Action.“It's an important step forward to providing all New Jersey workers a livable wage. No one who works full time should struggle to make ends meet.”

“At Foley Waite LLC, our New Jersey architectural woodworking firm has employed skilled cabinet makers, helpers and apprentices since 1978,” said Kelly Conklin, Managing Partner at Foley Waite LLC. “We have supported raising the minimum wage from the start. Governor Murphy recognizes as we do, a living wage grows our economy, not in boardrooms and mansions, it grows the economy on Main Street. This increase is long overdue and we thank the Governor for his leadership on this critically important policy.”

“We're very happy New Jersey's minimum wage is increasing,” said Gail Friedberg, CEO of Zago Manufacturing. “We support a $15 minimum wage because no one who works full-time should live in poverty. And we know from experience that fair pay is better for business. It brings low turnover, which helps us innovate. With a higher wage floor and more dependable workforce, business owners can think about ways to make the business better instead of spending time and money to replace people who left to find a job that pays the bills. I look forward to seeing the economic ripple effect our state will experience thanks to raising the minimum wage."

“Today’s historic step toward $15 minimum wage with an increase to $10 dollars per hour from $8.85 dollars per hour will give the working men and women the pay that they deserve,” said Tony Sandkamp, CEO of Sandkamp Woodworks. “At Sandkamp Woodworks, we stand with the Governor’s commitment to increase the wage so that every person in the state has the opportunity to improve their lives whether it be providing for their families or meeting their financial needs.”

“At Bergen New Bridge, we have been committed to ensure that workers at our hospital are paid wages of $15 per hour,” said Deborah Visconi, Bergen New Bridge Medical Center. “We applaud the Governor for his efforts to bring this issue on a statewide level, providing every resident of New Jersey the compensation they deserve.”

…. 
Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thomson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thomson-Reuters). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman 1.973.696.7900jon@gelmans.com has been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

Friday, April 26, 2019

NJ Governor Murphy Signs Legislation Providing Information on Public Works Projects

Nj Governor Phil Murphy today signed S3129 into law, which will require the Commissioner of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development to create a list of labor organizations that represent workers who engage in public work projects. 

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Consequences of Increasing the Minimum Wage


The national wave toward raising the statutory minimum wage to $15.00/hour is going to have major consequences for the ailing national network of workers' compensation programs. Not only is it going to increase benefits for injured workers that are calculated on wages, but it is also going increase much needed premium dollars for insurance companies whose premiums are based on payroll costs.

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Workers’ Compensation Benefits for Injured Workers Continue to Decline While Employer Costs Rise

Study Finds Benefits as a Share of Payroll Approach Lowest in Three Decades

Workers’ compensation benefits as a share of payroll for injured workers continue to decline even as employment grows and overall employer costs increase, according to anew report from the National Academy of Social Insurance (the Academy).

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Have Democrats Failed the White Working Class?

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


Thomas B. Edsall

Why don’t white working-class voters recognize where their economic interests lie? Somewhat self-righteously, Democrats keep asking themselves that question.
A better question would be: What has the Democratic Party done for these voters lately?
At work and at home, their lives are worse than they were a generation ago. Their real incomes have fallen, their employment opportunities have diminished, their families have crumbled and their ties to society are fraying.
This is how daily life feels, to many in the white working class. Unlike blacks and Hispanics, whites are not the beneficiaries of affirmative action programs designed to open doors to higher education and better jobs for underrepresented minorities; if anything, these programs serve only to limit their horizons.
Liberal victories in the sexual and women’s rights revolutions – victories that have made the lives of many upscale Democrats more productive and satisfying — appear, from the vantage point of the white working class, to have left many women to struggle as single parents, forced to cope with both male defection from paternal responsibility and the fragmentation of a family structure that was crucial to upward mobility in the postwar period.
This bleak view emerges from two recently published works, “Labor’s Love Lost,” by Andrew Cherlin, a professor of public policy at Johns Hopkins, and “Was Moynihan Right? What Happens to the Children of...
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Saturday, October 25, 2014

'We Suck' on Minimum Wage, U.S. Labor Chief Says; Christie Has 'Head in the Sand'

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

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has “got his head in the sand” when it comes to the plight of minimum-wage earners in his state, U.S. Labor Secretary Tom Perez said.

“I’ve met with minimum-wage workers in New Jersey,” Perez said today at a Bloomberg News event in Washington. “I’ve met with folks who -- the only raise they got, they’re baggage handlers at Newark Airport, and the only raise they got was when the voters increased the minimum wage.”

President Barack Obama and his administration have been pushing Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from $7.25. Most Republicans in Congress and many Republican governors, including Christie, oppose the increase. The Democratic-led Senate has tried and failed repeatedly to advance the issue, and House Speaker John Boehner has said his Republican-led chamber won’t consider it.

“All the Democrats and the president want to talk about is minimum wage,” Christie, 52, told reporters today at a diner in Bordentown, New Jersey, where he was campaigning for congressional candidate Tom MacArthur, a Republican from Toms River. “The reason they want to do that is because they have not had the kind of growth in this country that we should be having in terms of wages and better jobs.”

New Jersey voters last November approved a constitutional amendment that will increase the...
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Friday, July 25, 2014

United Airlines' Outsourcing Jobs to Company That Pays Near-Poverty Wages Is Shameful

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

On October 1, United Airlines is planning to outsource 630 gate agent jobs at 12 airports to companies that pay near-poverty level wages. The airports affected include Salt Lake City; Charlotte, North Carolina; Pensacola, Florida; Detroit and Des Moines, Iowa.

As a result hundreds of employees who formerly made middle-class, living wages will be forced to transfer to other cities, take early retirement or seek employment elsewhere. Union employees who have been with the company for years -- many making a respectable $50,000-per-year salaries -- will be replaced by non-union employees who will be paid less than half -- between $9.50 and $12 per hour.

Nine-fifty an hour is a poverty-level wage if you are trying to support a family -- and $12 barely exceeds the poverty level. In fact at $12 a family of three makes so little that they are eligible for food stamps.

That, in effect, means that United and its subcontractor will be subsidized by American taxpayers for the food stamp payments made to their new low-wage workers.

United's move to convert middle-class jobs into near-poverty level jobs is shameful -- it's that simple.

And United's move to cut employee pay is emblematic of corporate America's systematic campaign to lower wages and destroy the American middle class in order to increase returns to Wall Street shareholders. It is exactly the kind of action that must come to a screeching halt if the middle class is to survive -- and our children are once again be able to look...


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Sunday, July 6, 2014

12 states now have plans for a minimum wage of $9 or more

Map of minimum wage rates in the United States...
Map of minimum wage rates in the United States. See List of U.S. minimum wages. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Wages govern rates of workers' compensation. They define the premium cost as well as he benefit structure. Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from m.washingtonpost.com


Rhode Island on Thursday joined 11 other states that plan to raise their minimum wage to at least $9 over the next several years.

At the start of next year, the state minimum wage will rise a buck to $9 an hour, according to a new measure Gov. Lincoln Chafee (D) signed into law on Thursday.

Only three states currently have a minimum wage of at least $9. Washington’s is highest at $9.32, followed by Oregon’s minimum wage at $9.10. California’s rose to $9 earlier this week. When Rhode Island’s new rate goes into effect, it will be joined by three others: the minimum wage in Massachusetts will rise to $9, while that in Vermont and Connecticut will jump to $9.15. In all but three — Minnesota, Michigan and New York — the minimum wages will be above $10.

By 2018, 12 states will have reached or surpassed the $9 level. Ten states and D.C. have enacted increases this year alone, according to a list maintained by the National Conference of State Legislatures. The states are: Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont and West Virginia. Many more — 34 states — have considered doing so, according to the NCSL.
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Thursday, June 26, 2014

Ikea Plans to Increase Minimum Hourly Pay

Today's post was shared by The New York Times and comes from www.nytimes.com

Ikea plans to adopt a wage structure that it says will raise the average hourly minimum wage at its 38 stores in the United States to $10.76 an hour — a 17 percent increase.
Ikea, which will be announcing its new wage policy on Thursday, said it would not impose an across-the-board minimum wage for its stores, but would instead set a minimum for each store based on the cost of living in that particular area.
For example, the minimum wage will run from a low of $8.69 an hour at its stores in Pittsburgh and West Chester, Ohio, to $13.22 an hour at its store in Woodbridge, Va.
Ikea said that its new average minimum wage, $10.76 an hour, was $3.51 above the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
The retailer’s decision was made as many low-wage workers and labor unions are pushing for an increase in the federal minimum wage and after Gap Inc. informed its employees in February that it would set $9 as the minimum hourly rate for its United States work force this year and then establish a minimum of $10 next year.
Gap said its new policy would raise pay for more than two-thirds of its 90,000 American employees, including those at Banana Republic and Old Navy, while Ikea said its new policy would raise the pay of about half of its 13,120 United States employees.
“This stems back to Ikea’s decision to create a better everyday life for our people,” said Rob Olson, Ikea’s acting president for the United States and its chief financial officer.
...
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Monday, April 28, 2014

Missing Ingredient on Minimum Wage: A Motivated G.O.P.

Today's post was shared by The New York Times and comes from www.nytimes.com


Photo
WASHINGTON — Each of the three previous presidents — two Republicans, one Democrat — signed an increase in the federal minimum wage.
Given Mr. Obama’s emphasis on income inequality, and the popularity of an increase in opinion polls, you would think he would. But the story of recent increases underscores the indispensable ingredient he so far lacks: a Republican leader strongly motivated to make a deal over the party’s philosophical objections.
In 1989, it was a new Republican in the White House. President George Bush, while campaigning to succeed Ronald Reagan, had promised “a kinder, gentler America.” The Democrats then controlling both houses of Congress set out to take him up on it.
Mr. Bush drove a hard bargain on the minimum wage. He vetoed the first version Congress sent on grounds that it raised the wage by 30 cents an hour too much. But he eventually accepted a two-stage increase to $4.25 an hour on the condition that lawmakers include a lower “training wage” for teenagers.
Photo
President Bill Clinton and the Republican former Senate leader Trent Lott in 2009, 13 years after they forged agreement on a minimum-wage increase.
In 1996, it was a new Republican Senate leader. Trent Lott took over after Bob Dole, then running for president against the incumbent Democrat, Bill Clinton, resigned his Senate seat.
Mr. Clinton, who had battled fiercely with the House speaker, Newt Gingrich, and Mr. Dole,...
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Monday, April 14, 2014

Executive Pay: Invasion of the Supersalaries

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

Browse the proxy statements of the nation’s largest corporations and you’ll find the instruction manuals for this apparatus explaining how to finely calibrate the pay of top executives with company performance.
The Coca-Cola board, for example, lays out the formula that set the 2013 cash bonus for Muhtar Kent, its chief executive (base salary x base salary factor x business performance factor). It explains how a failure to achieve certain goals helped limit the bonus to $2 million, but also describes how Mr. Kent got millions more in stock and options. It notes that under his leadership, Coke had “continued to gain value share globally in nonalcoholic ready-to-drink beverages,” and tells shareholders why the board might require him to fly on the company jet (“to allow travel time to be used productively for the Company”). What was all that worth? A tidy $18 million.
But putting aside whether those particular metrics for aligning pay with performance make sense (or, rather, turning over that discussion to Gretchen Morgenson in her Fair Game column), the elegant machine itself would seem to have a dark side. Some say, in fact, that it is the main engine of inequality in America today.
The current system of executive compensation, with its emphasis on performance, can theoretically constrain pay, but in practice it has not stopped companies...
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Related Articles:
Apr 09, 2014
Today, he took two executive actions aimed at federal contractors. One bars companies from retaliating against workers who discuss their pay with each other. The other requires compensation data broken down by race and ...
Apr 07, 2014
Before that, he served as the Obama administration's “pay-czar”, a job created by the 2009 stimulus law to oversee executive compensation practices at financial firms bailed out during the financial crisis. He's administered or.
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At the White House Tuesday, President Barack Obama will sign two new executive actions on equal pay as Senate Democrats move for a show-vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act — launching Democrats' first large-scale ...

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Senate Republicans Block Bill on Equal Pay

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


WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked legislation meant to close the pay gap between men and women, framing an election-year fight between the parties over whose policies are friendlier to women.
The bill was an attempt by Democrats to press what they see as their electoral advantage among women in the coming midterm elections, but they fell short of the 60 votes they needed to prevent a filibuster and advance the legislation.
“For reasons known only to them, Senate Republicans don’t seem to be interested in closing wage gaps for working women,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said in a floor speech.
Republican lawmakers have said that given existing anti-discrimination laws, the legislation is redundant and is a transparent attempt by Democrats to distract from President Obama’s much-criticized health care law.
Supporters of the bill, called the Paycheck Fairness Act, say it would bring transparency to worker pay by making it illegal for employers to penalize employees who discuss their salaries and by requiring the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to collect pay information from employers.
Mr. Obama signed executive measures on Tuesday that imposed similar requirements on government contractors.
Republican leaders assailed Democrats’ attempt to paint them as unsympathetic to women in the work force. The Senate Republican Conference on Wednesday called the pay equity legislation “the latest...
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Saturday, April 5, 2014

After Push by Obama, Minimum-Wage Action Is Moving to the States

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

The more President Obama talks about the need to raise the federal minimum wage, the less likely it appears that Republicans in Congress are inclined to do it.

But the stalemate matters less and less. In the last 14 months, since Mr. Obama first called for the wage increase in his 2013 State of the Union address, seven states and the District of Columbia have raised their own minimum wages, and 34 states have begun legislative debates on the matter. Activists in an additional eight states are pursuing ballot referendums this year to demand an increase in wages for their lowest-paid workers.

The result is an outside-the-Beltway variation on Mr. Obama’s pledge to use his executive powers to bypass an obstructionist Republican Party in Congress. In this case, White House aides said they believed that Mr. Obama’s feverish rhetorical push for a higher minimum federal wage, to $10.10 per hour from $7.25, has helped generate political pressure on states to act.

On Wednesday, the president continued the push at the University of Michigan, the latest in an almost weekly focus on the subject in speeches, blog posts, radio addresses and events. In March, Mr. Obama delivered remarks on the topic at universities in Florida and Connecticut. In February, he issued an executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contractors. In January, he demanded a raise for America’s workers at a Costco in Maryland.

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Related Stories:

Workers' Compensation: The Case for a Higher Minimum Wage
Feb 12, 2014
The political posturing over raising the minimum wage sometimes obscures the huge and growing number of low-wage workers it would affect. An estimated 27.8 million people would earn more money under the Democratic ...
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Workers' Compensation: Report: Minimum wage hike would cut food ...
Mar 08, 2014
Raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour would reduce federal food stamp spending by $4.6 billion a year, according to a report to be released Wednesday by the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress.
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After Push by Obama, Minimum-Wage Action Is Moving to the States
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In the last 14 months, since Mr. Obama first called for the wage increase in his 2013 State of the Union address, seven states and the District of Columbia have raised their own minimum wages, and 34 states have begun ...
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President Barack Obama plans to act unilaterally to raise the minimum wage for employees of federal contractors, a move that asserts his executive powers before his State of the Union address in which he will press ...
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Sunday, March 16, 2014

McDonald's Accused of Stealing Wages From Already Underpaid Workers

Wage are the basic factor upon which to calculate rates for workers' compensation purposes.
Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

Fast food workers make very little money. How little money? Very little money! So little in fact that a single parent of one living in New York City would have to work 144 hours a week "to make a secure yet modest living." But apparently, those wages are not low enough, a group of McDonald's workers allege, to stop the company from also stealing from them.
Wage-theft suits brought against McDonald's this week in Michigan, California, and New York accuse the chain of refusing to pay overtime, ordering people to work off the clock, and straight up erasing hours from timecards. If these allegations are true, and maybe they're not, but maybe they are, then the company has been illegally screwing people who are already being legally screwed.
This is the most recent development in a months-long campaign by fast-food workers pushing for a $15/hour starting wage.
You shouldn't eat fast food because fast food is bad for you but if you do eat fast food (and you will eat fast food at least once in a while because nobody can be perfect all the time), be nice to the people who serve you. They have to fight tooth and nail to make ends meet.
Could you make it on fast food wages? Here's a depressing calculator. (Spoiler: Probably not!)
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Wednesday, February 12, 2014

The Case for a Higher Minimum Wage

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


The political posturing over raising the minimum wage sometimes obscures the huge and growing number of low-wage workers it would affect. An estimated 27.8 million people would earn more money under the Democratic proposal to lift the hourly minimum from $7.25 today to $10.10 by 2016. And most of them do not fit the low-wage stereotype of a teenager with a summer job. Their average age is 35; most work full time; more than one-fourth are parents; and, on average, they earn half of their families’ total income.
None of that, however, has softened the hearts of opponents, including congressional Republicans and low-wage employers, notably restaurant owners and executives.
This is not a new debate. The minimum wage is a battlefield in a larger political fight between Democrats and Republicans — dating back to the New Deal legislation that instituted the first minimum wage in 1938 — over government’s role in the economy, over raw versus regulated capitalism, over corporate power versus public needs.

Interactive Feature

More than 4.8 million workers now earn the lowest legal pay. This calculator shows the hard choices that have to be made living on the smallest paychecks.
But the results of the wage debate are clear. Decades of research, facts and evidence show that increasing the minimum wage is vital to the economic security of tens of millions of Americans, and would be good for the weak economy. As Congress begins its own debate, here...
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Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Payroll Data Shows a Lag in Wages, Not Just Hiring

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



For the more than 10 million Americans who are out of work, finding a job is hard. For the 145 million or so who are employed, getting a raise is even harder.
The government said on Friday that employers added 113,000 jobs in January, the second straight month of anemic growth, despite some signs of strength in the broader economy. The unemployment rate inched down in January to 6.6 percent, the lowest level since October 2008, from 6.7 percent in December.
But the report also made plain what many Americans feel in their bones: Wages are stuck, and barely rose at all in 2013. They were up 1.9 percent last year, or a mere 0.4 percent after accounting for inflation. Not only was that increase even smaller than the one recorded in 2012, it was half the normal rate of wage gains in the two decades before the last recession.



The stagnation helps explain why many people feel apprehensive even though the economy grew at a robust pace in the second half of 2013, corporate profits rose, the stock market boomed and the housing market continued to gain ground. The issue cuts across the American work force. In fact, white-collar workers did a bit worse than blue-collar workers last year in terms of wage growth.


Austin Moore, 18, pictured at a career fair in Dallas, is one of many young job seekers. LM Otero/Associated Press

“People are running in place in terms of their living standards,” said Ethan Harris, co-head of global economics at Bank of America Merrill...
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Sunday, January 12, 2014

No Jobs, No Benefits, and Lousy Pay

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

There is nothing good to say about the December employment report, which showed that only 74,000 jobs were added last month. But dismal as it was, the report came at an opportune political moment. The new numbers rebut the Republican arguments that jobless benefits need not be renewed, and that the current minimum wage is adequate. At the same time, they underscore the need, only recently raised to the top of the political agenda, to combat poverty and inequality.
The report showed that average monthly job growth in 2013 was 182,000, basically unchanged from 2012. Even the decline in the jobless rate last month, from 7 percent in November to 6.7 percent, was a sign of weakness: It mainly reflects a shrinking labor force — not new hiring — as the share of workers employed or looking for work fell to the lowest level since 1978. That’s a tragic waste of human capital. It would be comforting to ascribe the dwindling labor force mainly to retirements or other long-term changes, but most of the decline is due to weak job opportunities and weak labor demand since the Great Recession.
One result is that the share of jobless workers who have been unemployed for six months or longer has remained stubbornly high. In December, it was nearly 38 percent, still higher by far than at any time before the Great Recession, in records going back to 1948.
And yet, nearly 1.3 million of those long-term unemployed had their federal jobless benefits abruptly cut off at the end...
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Friday, December 13, 2013

The Minimum Wage Ain’t What It Used to Be

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from mobile.nytimes.com

David Neumark is professor of economics and director of the Center for Economics and Public Policy at the University of California, Irvine.
Proponents of raising the minimum wage often point out that the real minimum wage is lower now than it was decades ago. But the federal policy aimed at low-wage work and low-income families has shifted — wisely — away from reliance on the minimum wage and toward a generous earned-income tax credit, which is better focused on poor families. There is nothing wrong with reducing our reliance on a less effective policy when we have adopted a more effective one. In fact, we should hope that research on public policy leads to exactly this kind of outcome.
The decline in the real value of the minimum wage is indisputable. As shown in the chart below, the real value of the federal minimum declined sharply over the 1980s, and then further in the mid-2000s, before partly recovering with the fairly steep increases in the minimum wage in 2007-9. But despite those increases and low inflation in recent years, it still remains well below its real value in the 1970s.
There has been a significant policy shift, however, in how to guarantee a minimally acceptable income to families with low-wage workers. In particular, the earned-income tax credit was instituted in 1976, and its generosity has since been expanded considerably.
Through the tax system, the earned-income tax credit pays benefits to families with low income and employed workers. For...
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