What is Labor Day? Why Congress Made Labor Day a National Holiday

Time.com- Nowadays, many think of the Labor Day holiday in the U.S., which falls on the first Monday in September, as a day for cookouts or shopping deals. But its origins date back to two gatherings of another, more politically motivated sort.

One was a “monster labor festival” featuring of a parade of unions and accompanying picnic, which took place on Sept. 5, 1882, in a New York City park. That gathering is thought to have attracted as many as 10,000 marchers, according to Linda Stinson, a former Department of Labor historian. They listened to speeches in support of workers' rights, and — in lighthearted activities more in the spirit of what goes on today — people drank beer, danced and set off fireworks.

The other event was a darker one. On May 11, 1894, in a company town outside Chicago, employees of the railway sleeping car mastermind George Pullman went on strike when their wages didn't go up after the economy tanked. In a show of solidarity, the American Railway Union — said to have boasted 150,000 members at the time and led by famous socialist Eugene Debs — refused to operate Pullman train cars, snarling mail delivery and prompting President Grover Cleveland to send in federal troops to break up the strike. Rioting and arson broke out, and it evolved into what's now considered one of the bloodiest episodes in American labor history.

Some experts say Cleveland supported the idea of such a holiday, which already existed in several states, in an effort to make peace with the unions before he ran for re-election. (He would lose anyway.) But perhaps one of the most eloquent explanations of why the federal government saw fit to declare the holiday can be found in a Congressional committee report on the matter.

Sen. James Henderson Kyle of South Dakota introduced a bill, S. 730, to Congress shortly after the Pullman strike, proposing Labor Day be the first Monday in September. Here's how Rep. Lawrence McGann (D-IL), who sat on the Committee on Labor, argued for the holiday in a report submitted on May 15, 1894:

 - The use of national holidays is to emphasize some great event or principle in the minds of the people by giving them a day of rest and recreation, a day of enjoyment, in commemoration of it. By making one day in each year a public holiday for the benefit of workingmen the equality and dignity of labor is emphasized. Nothing is more important to the public weal than that the nobility of labor be maintained. So long as the laboring man can feel that he holds an honorable as well as useful place in the body politic, so long will he be a loyal and faithful citizen.

The celebration of Labor Day as a national holiday will in time naturally lead to an honorable emulation among the different crafts beneficial to them and to the whole public. It will tend to increase the feeling of common brotherhood among men of all crafts and callings, and at the same time kindle an honorable desire in each craft to surpass the rest.

There can be no substantial objection to making one day in the year a national holiday for the benefit of labor. The labor organizations of the whole country, representing the great body of our artisan population, request it. They are the ones most interested. They desire it and should have it. If the farmers, manufacturers, and professional men are indifferent to the measure, or even oppose it, which there is no reason to believe, that still would constitute no good objection, for their work can be continued on holidays as well as on other days if they so desire it. Workingmen should have one day in the year peculiarly their own. Nor will their employers lose anything by it. Workingmen are benefited by a reasonable amount of rest and recreation. Whatever makes a workingman more of a man makes him more useful as a craftsman.

Cleveland signed the bill into law on June 28, 1894.

Now, more than a century later, Labor Day is firmly entrenched on the American calendar — but it does still come with at least one, much smaller, controversy: the old fashion debate over whether it's taboo to wear white after Labor Day.
(ontinueReading

No full-time minimum-wage worker can afford a 2-bedroom apartment in any US state

cnbc.com - The absolute least that an employer is legally allowed to pay an employee for an hour's work varies across the country, but one fact remains constant: In no state does working 40 hours a week for minimum wage enable a person to rent a two-bedroom apartment.

That's according to new research by the National Low Income Housing Coalition covered by The Washington Post. Across the country, it reports, even full-time workers would have to make about or more than twice as much to afford a home.

In states such as Alaska, Washington, Colorado, Florida, Virginia, Illinois and most of the Northeast, workers would have to make over $20 an hour. Workers in California, D.C. and Hawaii are the hardest hit by the price of housing: They need to earn a whopping $30, $33 or $35 an hour, respectively, to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25.

Not all workers are subject to the federal minimum wage. Some are, as five states, including Mississippi and Louisiana, have no official minimum wage, and two more, Georgia and Wyoming, have a minimum wage of $5.15, or about $10 less an hour than full-time employees would need to make to be able to afford a two-bedroom. In those places, the federal minimum wage applies, with a general exception for workers who receive tips.

By contrast, states such as Connecticut and California mandate that even entry-level workers receive about $10 an hour, while cities and, increasingly, states such as Illinois and New York are phasing in a new minimum wage of $15 an hour. That minimum supersedes the federal one.

The Fight for $15, a worldwide effort to raise wages and strengthen unions, has successfully led to better pay in many places since its launch in 2012, and a proposed federal minimum wage of $15 an hour is now part of the Democratic Party platform. According to these numbers, however, even that wouldn't make housing affordable.

As things stand, an American making the federal minimum wage of $7.25 would have to work 94.5 hours a week, or more than two full-time jobs, to afford a two-bedroom rental.

The Post notes that "many of the occupations projected to add the most jobs by 2024 pay too little to cover rent. These are customer service representatives, personal care aides, nursing assistants, home health aides, retail salespeople, home health and food service workers who make, on average, between $10 and $16 an hour. ... as a result, more than 11.2 million families end up spending more than half their paychecks on housing," money they could otherwise direct toward transportation, education, food, clothing or savings. (ontinueReading
* * * *

Related: A Wealthy Capitalist on Why Money Doesn’t Trickle Down

American capitalism has failed us: We’re overworked, underemployed and more powerless than ever before

U.S. job growth accelerates in January, but wages lag

Reuters - U.S. job growth surged more than expected in January as construction firms and retailers ramped up hiring, which likely gives the Trump administration a head start as it seeks to boost the economy and employment.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 227,000 jobs last month, the largest gain in four months, the Labor Department said on Friday. But the unemployment rate rose one-tenth of a percentage point to 4.8 percent and wages rose only by three cents, suggesting that there was still some slack in the labor market.

Revisions to November and December showed the economy created 39,000 fewer jobs than previously reported. Still, the labor market continues to tighten, which could soon spur a faster pace of wage growth. Federal Reserve officials view the labor market as being at or near full employment.

Prices for U.S. government bonds rose as traders focused on the disappointing wage growth, which was seen keeping the Fed on a gradual path of interest rate increases. The dollar was little changed against a basket of currencies.

U.S. stocks were trading higher. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls rising 175,000 last month and the unemployment rate unchanged at 4.7 percent.

"While there's a great deal of anticipation surrounding steps that President Trump and the GOP-led Congress are expected to take to boost the economy, that's going to take more time," said Mark Hamrick a senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com in Washington.

President Donald Trump vowed during last year's election campaign to deliver 4 percent annual gross domestic product growth, largely on the back of a plan to cut taxes, reduce regulations, increase infrastructure spending and renegotiate trade deals in the United States' favor.

Although details on the policy proposals remain sketchy, consumer and business confidence have surged in the wake of Trump's election victory last November. But with the economy near full employment, some economists are skeptical of the 4 percent growth pledge. Annual GDP growth has not exceeded 2.6 percent since the 2007-08 recession. (ontinueReading

US: Wages Are Increasing, But What's Behind It?

- The Great Recession ended 7 1/2 years ago, and job gains have been steady since, but greater demand for workers is only starting to increase pay.

The increases are still relatively modest, and the data are still mixed. In October, for example, the Labor Department reported average hourly earnings increased at a 2.8 percent rate — the highest since mid-2009, but wage growth slowed in November. A separate report this month showed the cost of labor — another measure of wage growth — increased especially during the spring of this year.

What's driving the recent wage growth is unclear.

"The mystery has been that we've seen a decline in the unemployment rate, but we haven't seen the kind of increases in wage growth that we would expect," says Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

He speculates that until recently, employers figured they didn't have to increase wages, because in recent years so many people had stopped working or looking for work.

"Businesses kind of have the sense that [the missing workers] are out there — they are a pool of available workers — so that has, I think, suppressed wage growth," Strain says.

This year, that finally appears to be changing, and Strain and others believe wage growth will continue into next year, chiefly because the supply of labor is declining. The unemployment rate, at 4.6 percent, is near a level economists say is close to a "natural" unemployment rate.

New state and local minimum wage laws are another reason wages are rising. Since 2014, 21 states and Washington, D.C., changed their minimum wage laws. Last month, voters approved initiatives in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and Washington state. And more increases are expected in the coming year.

Strain says those increases have a ripple effect beyond just the lowest paid workers. Many union contracts, for example, benchmark to the minimum wage.

"There's no question minimum wage increases cause wage growth to accelerate," he says. "How much of that can be attributed to minimum wage increases is an open question."

In Anggie Godoy's case, minimum wage hikes made a big difference. She started working as a McDonald's drive-through cashier three years ago, making $8 an hour. Since then, the Los Angeles City Council raised the minimum wage to $10.50. Without the city's new law, Godoy says, she would only have seen a tiny increase.

"Working three years there, I only got a 10-cent raise," she says.

Godoy, who participated in fast-food workers' strikes demanding a $15 hourly wage, says that as her wages increased, so did wages for those in more senior positions.

Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist for online job site Glassdoor, says Godoy is right.

"Like dominoes up the pay scale, you see wage hikes all across the board," he says.

But minimum wage isn't the biggest factor, Chamberlain says, citing Glassdoor's data that show the most in-demand jobs are those whose pay is increasing fastest: truck drivers, construction workers and machine operators. That is not true for some white-collar jobs — sales jobs and financial analysts, for example, which are losing ground.

"Clever coders are finding ways to program around them," Chamberlain says. "Insurance agents today are largely being replaced by self-service insurance websites."

David Levine, CEO of the American Sustainable Business Council, a progressive advocacy group, says increasing pay can be a way to address another labor-market problem: low productivity growth.

"With that retention they're also getting employees that are more committed to the business, therefore productivity goes up," he argues.

Simply put: You pay more to get more. (Source)

What if every worker received minimum wage?

Here is the thought question for today:

   Via marshallbrain.com - What if every worker in the United States got paid minimum wage for the work they do?
It doesn't matter who you are or what you do. Whether you are working in McDonald's mopping the floor or you are the CEO of McDonald's. Whether you deliver the mail for the President or you are the President of the United States. No matter who you are, you make $5.15 an hour for the work you do, and everyone's total income is capped at $11,000 per year. What would happen if we did that?
The reason why we might choose to do that is because the wages of most workers are headed in that direction anyway. Corporations all over the nation have been pushing worker wages down to the minimum wage level:

We all know about the burger places. They have created a burger assembly line where millions of restaurant workers now make minimum wage.

In the 1990s, HMOs started pushing the wages paid to physicians downward for the first time ever. Minimum wage can't be far away for doctors.

Southwest Airlines built a new discount travel model by paying pilots and flight attendants less than industry norms for the work they do. Now the whole industry is following Southwest's lead because they have no choice if they want to compete. Wages across the airline industry are falling. Once that becomes the norm, someone else will come along to beat Southwest and cut wages again. Many commuter airline pilots make near minimum wage already. It's just a matter of time before everyone in the airline industry is making minimum wage.

Wal-Mart took away business from the small town downtown and hired all those store owners for minimum wage.

Wages everywhere are under pressure and headed toward minimum wage anyway. Why don't we simply short circuit the process and take everyone down to minimum wage now, in one fell swoop? It would be a lot less painful that way. And let's include CEOs, executives and politicians in the process. If a major corporation cannot afford to pay a clerk more than minimum wage because of pressure from competitors, then there is certainly no way the same corporation can afford to pay the CEO and other executives $10 million a year. The practicalities and realities of our business environment should apply to every part of the business, not just to one segment of the workers. Everyone, from the CEO on down, should make minimum wage to maximize the corporation's competitiveness.
No one is spared: The president of the United States, all the politicians and bureaucrats, CEOs and executives, business owners, lawyers, doctors and dentists… everyone. If you get a paycheck, you get minimum wage. No exceptions.

What would happen if we did that?

Perhaps most importantly, it would save the economy a lot of money. According to the New York Times Almanac, businesses hire 105 million people per year and pay them just over $3 trillion per year (the figure does not include government employees), for an average wage of roughly $30,000 per year. At $5.15 an hour and 40 hours a week, all 105 million of these employees would start making a uniform $10,700 per year at minimum wage. By doing that, the $3 trillion figure would fall to $1 trillion. The economy would save $2 trillion every year. The drop in prices would be spectacular, because $2 trillion represents $20,000 per U.S. household. Something that costs $10 today might see its price drop to $4.00 or less. Even though we would all be making minimum wage, that wage would buy far more in the economy than it does today. Everyone in the country would be able to live a comfortable middle class lifestyle.

What would happen to highly paid people like TV/movie stars, corporate executives, sports stars, radio personalities and so on? Their salaries would go from millions of dollars a year to $10,700 a year. Would it be a catastrophe? No. In all likelihood, absolutely nothing would happen. Is Rush Limbaugh going to give up his soapbox if he got paid less? Probably not. I imagine he likes the fame and influence his show gives him. He is going nowhere. Are Peter Jennings, Dan Rather and Tom Brockaw going to quit? Probably not. They like the fame too. The stars of popular TV shows? No… they cannot get into the best restaurants, have adoring fans or get Emmy awards unless they appear on their shows.

But if they do quit, it is not a problem. Johnny Carson left the Tonight Show, and we got Jay Leno. It was not a catastrophe. If Dave Letterman leaves Late Night because he does not like the pay, we'd get another host. It would be OK. There are thousands and thousands of people who would love to have Dave's, Rush's or Jay's jobs.

Would CEOs leave? Maybe. But if they are good CEOs, they love what they are doing building companies and leading people. If they don't want to do it unless they get paid $15 million a year, that probably tells us something about them. We probably don't want them leading a company anyway if they are only in it for the money. If we replace them with people who actually care about the job and the company, we would all be better off. We could have completely avoided Enron, Worldcom, etc. and the resulting stock market collapse if we had had good, honest people filling the CEO roles in those companies.

As you start to think about this new minimum wage reality, you begin to realize something. Most people -- especially the ones who are highly paid today -- would stay in their current jobs. The perks of fame and power would keep them there. So here's the question: Why isn't supply and demand governing the pay of CEOs, TV celebrities, sports stars and supermodels, driving their wages down just like everyone else? (Full Text)

$15-per-hour wages go to US capital: What's next?

[csmoniter.com] - The District of Columbia has approved a measure to raise its official minimum wage to $15 per hour, a possible solution increasingly cited for the stagnation of wages in low-paying jobs.

The Fight for $15 movement's controversial solution for income inequality has rallied fast-food, home care, and retail workers to protests around the country and successfully convinced a number of cities and states around the country to adopt the experiment.

The city council of Washington, D.C., voted unanimously to join in, passing a measure on Tuesday to move the district's minimum hourly wage to $15 by 2020. The final vote is set for later in June, but Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) has already promised to sign the bill.

"Raising the minimum wage will help address the issues of residents being pushed out of the District due to rising costs of living and income inequality," said co-sponsor Councilmember Vincent Orange in a hearing.

Mr. Orange and other supporters of the bill – including unions – said the district's rapid growth and healthy economy make a swift move economically viable. The district's current minimum hourly wage is $10.50, up from the federal minimum of $7.25, but it will rise by a full dollar as of July 1. Increases tied to inflation are planned after the $15 goal is reached. [Full Story]

Related - The Capitalist’s Case for a $15 Minimum Wage

California fast-food workers shift focus from minimum wage to unionizing

THE HORROR!

(latimes) - As fast-food and other low-wage workers rally Thursday across the country for a $15 minimum wage, the Fight for $15 campaign in California will be shifting its focus to another goal: unionizing.

Thousands of Los Angeles area workers from the service and homecare industries are expected to strike Thursday as part of Fight for $15 rallies in 320 U.S. cities and 40 countries, according to the Service Employees International Union, which has backed the campaign.

Those workers will march to a rally at a McDonald's in the Arts District around noon.

"The demand from the original strikes in 2012 was $15 and a union," said Mary Kay Henry, international president of the SEIU. "Underpaid workers in California are now on a path to $15, but we think the way we can make these jobs good jobs ... is through a union."

Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill last week to gradually increase the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2022. That same day, New York passed similar legislation to raise its hourly minimum to $15.

Deal reached to boost California's minimum wage to $15, avoiding ballot box battle

(latimes) - Lawmakers and labor unions have struck a tentative deal to raise the statewide minimum wage to $10.50 an hour next year and then gradually to $15, averting a costly political campaign this fall and possibly putting California at the forefront of a national movement.

The deal was confirmed Saturday afternoon by sources close to the negotiations who would speak only on condition of anonymity until Gov. Jerry Brown makes a formal announcement as early as Monday.

The minimum wage compromise ends a long debate between the Democratic governor and some of the state's most powerful labor unions. For Brown, it's political pragmatism; numerous statewide polls have suggested voters would approve a minimum wage proposal — perhaps even a more sweeping version — if given the chance.

According to a document obtained by The Times, the negotiated deal would boost California's statewide minimum wage from $10 an hour to $10.50 on Jan. 1, 2017, with a 50-cent increase in 2018 and then $1-per-year increases through 2022. Businesses with fewer than 25 employees would have an extra year to comply, delaying their workers receiving a $15 hourly wage until 2023.

Future statewide minimum wage increases would be linked to inflation, but a governor would have the power to temporarily block some of the initial increases in the event of an economic downturn.

Fast-food CEO says he's investing in machines because the government is making it difficult to afford employees

(BusinessInsider) The CEO of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's has visited the fully automated restaurant Eatsa — and it's given him some ideas on how to deal with rising minimum wages.

"I want to try it," CEO Andy Puzder told Business Insider of his automated restaurant plans. "We could have a restaurant that's focused on all-natural products and is much like an Eatsa, where you order on a kiosk, you pay with a credit or debit card, your order pops up, and you never see a person."

Puzder's interest in an employee-free restaurant, which he says would be possible only if the company found time as Hardee's works on its northeastern expansion, has been driven by rising minimum wages across the US.

"With government driving up the cost of labor, it's driving down the number of jobs," he says. "You're going to see automation not just in airports and grocery stores, but in restaurants."

Puzder has been an outspoken advocate against raising the minimum wage, writing two op-eds for The Wall Street Journal on how a higher minimum wage would lead to reduced employment opportunities. (Full Story)

Added Reading:
Restaurant CEOs Make More Money in Half a Day Than Their Employees Make in a Year

* * * *
So Carl's Jr. can invest in robots but can't raise their worker wages or invest in their workers?  What would happen if the CEO of Car's Jr was paid the minimum wage of $7.25? Let's make it happen.

Wal-Mart to Boost Wages for Most U.S. Store Workers

THE HORROR!

(wallstreetjournal) Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will give nearly all its U.S. hourly store employees—and not just minimum-wage earners—a raise next month, as the nation’s largest private employer tries to combat a tighter labor market and the turnover endemic in the retailing industry.

Wal-Mart previously said it planned to boost its minimum wage in February to $10 an hour. But the giant retailer said Wednesday that hourly workers employed in its stores as of Dec. 31 would get at least a 2% pay bump. The wage increase will affect nearly 1.2 million U.S. employees at the company’s Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores.

The across-the-board pay increase is aimed at addressing complaints by some longtime store workers about Wal-Mart’s more-generous starting wages for new hires. The company also is hoping to stem defections and the sums it spends to hire and train new employees. Wal-Mart loses about half a million store workers a year.

Minimum-wage increases took effect in 20 states last year, and several of the biggest employers of hourly workers, including McDonald’s Corp. and Starbucks Corp., have raised their starting pay.

Retail workers in the U.S. earned an average of $14.95 an hour in December, up 3.6% from a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. With the raises planned for February, average hourly earnings will be $13.38 for Wal-Mart’s full-time store employees and $10.58 for part-time workers, the company said.

Some rivals, including Target Corp., are expected to follow Wal-Mart’s lead, especially in markets where the starting wage is below $10 an hour. “We constantly evaluate our hourly wage rates and adjust based on changing conditions in each market,” a Target spokesman said.

Wal-Mart is in the costly process of trying to improve its 4,600 U.S. stores while also investing heavily to boost e-commerce sales. It has said the wage boost—including the 2% increase for those who earn more than the minimum wage—would cost about $2.7 billion over fiscal years 2016 and 2017, driving down next fiscal year’s profit by as much as 12%. Last week, in a rare retreat, Wal-Mart said it would close 154 stores in the U.S. and another 115 globally, as it weeds out weaker-performing locations.

13 union states to raise minimum wage in 2016

(cnbc.com) - If you are among the United States' lowest earners, you could be ringing in the new year with a raise, depending on where you live.

Fourteen cities and counties in seven states — Washington, Oregon, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California and Montana — agreed to increase the minimum wage to $15 in 2015, according to a report by the National Employment Law Project, a national advocacy organization for employment rights of lower-wage workers.

These increases will take place over the course of several years, giving local businesses time to adjust to the hike.

While not all states will be adjusting rates to the $15 mark, 13 states — Alaska, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and West Virginia — will increase minimum wages in 2016.

These wage increases range from a 35 cents an hour in states like Michigan to a dollar in California, Massachusetts and Nebraska. (Full Text)

Bernie Sanders is Declaring War on Walmart

CHANGE!

Sen. Bernie Sanders is no fan of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and there are many reasons for that:
The company doesn't provide benefits for most of its employees, and about $2.66 billion of taxpayer money goes to Wal-Mart employees in the form of food stamps and government healthcare each year.

Wal-Mart lost a class-action lawsuit alleging wage theft by making employees work through unpaid breaks and meal times, among other things.

Some have accused Wal-Mart of paying off foreign officials so they won't reveal the terrible conditions under which people labor in their overseas factories.

Not to mention the family in charge of the retail chain is incredibly rich.

This isn't the first time Sanders has spoken out against Wal-Mart. When the company announced that it would raise its bottom wage to $10.00 an hour by 2016, Sanders remained unimpressed.

“While this is a step forward and a response to grassroots activism across the country, this is nowhere near enough," he said in a press release. "Wal-Mart should raise their minimum wage to at least $10.10 an hour now and move it to $15.00 over the next several years. Struggling working families should not have to subsidize the wealthiest family in the country. Wal-Mart also should end its vehemently anti-union activities.”

Sanders called what Wal-Mart pays its employees "starvation wages." Sanders also recently distributed a Bloomberg Businessweek article about how Wal-Mart spied on its employees when there was concern that a large group of them might have been organizing a Black Friday strike, which could have been costly for the company.

In the Bloomberg article, Wal-Mart declined to comment and cited the ongoing case. This was the statement sent via email:

“We are firmly committed to the safety and security of our 2.2 million associates as well as the 260 million customers we serve each week. It’s important to remember that Walmart is the largest company in the world with 11,500 stores in 28 countries. Unfortunately, there are occasions when outside groups attempt to deliberately disrupt our business and on behalf of our customers and associates we take action accordingly.”

All of that said, Wal-Mart will still let you buy Bernie Sanders books and films in its online store.

‘Poverty Pay’ Leads Wal-Mart Employees to Steal Lunches From Co-Workers

(Via truthdig.com) 11/14/2015 Wal-Mart’s workers are so poor they’re skipping lunch, sharing the food of others or stealing from co-workers, some of them said as they announced a 15-day fast aimed at raising the company’s wages.

On Friday, more than 100 Wal-Mart employees involved in the workers organization Our Walmart began a fast to draw attention to the company’s “poverty pay.” Roughly 1,000 of their supporters joined them, and some took their fast to the doorstep of company heiress Alice Walton’s New York City apartment.

Earlier this year, Wal-Mart announced it would raise wages for about half a million of its employees to $9 an hour, $1.75 above the federally mandated minimum wage. The company said it would further increase the workers’ pay to $10 an hour next year.

The protesters say that’s still not enough to support them and demand to be paid $15 an hour and be given full-time schedules. The fasters are calling their protest the Fast for 15.

The Guardian reports:

  Tyfani Faulkner, a former Walmart customer service manager from Sacramento, California, who worked for company for about five years, will be one of those fasting in protest.

“Every day there are associates who go to work with no lunch, or an unhealthy lunch, because that’s all they can afford. I have seen instances where some would eat another associate’s lunch from the refrigerator because they have nothing to eat,” said Faulkner.

“One of the things I remember most from working at Walmart was my friends and I emptying our pockets to scrape together one meal we all could share for lunch. One of my coworkers put in a dollar, another two dollars, and with my two, we could together buy chicken from Walmart’s deli to split between us. That was lunch; I don’t know if they had dinner.”

Read more here.

NY minimum wage push spurs US debate, faces hurdles at home

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York’s plan to give fast-food workers a $15 minimum hourly wage is spurring similar efforts in other states even as Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s effort to enact a $15 wage for all workers faces vocal opposition at home.

In a campaign modeled after the successful push by fast-food workers in New York, groups in 18 states are creating citizen wage boards to pressure elected officials to raise the minimum wage. While the boards have no legal or governmental power to raise wages, they reflect the increasingly potent political muscle of low-wage workers.

“New York has done yeoman’s work. It’s one of the states that is leading the way,” said Michigan state Sen. Bert Johnson, a Democrat from Highland Park. “It’s a growing conversation around the country. Other states show that this can be done.”

New York became the first state to enact a $15 minimum wage though the one approved by Cuomo’s administration last month applies only to fast-food workers at chain restaurants. Cuomo bypassed the Legislature by having his labor commissioner appoint a state Wage Board to recommend the increase.

The Democratic governor said he will seek to raise the minimum hourly wage to $15 for all industries, an idea sure to face opposition in the state’s Republican-controlled Senate, where members say such a sharp increase would devastate small businesses. The state minimum is now $8.75 and was already set to rise to $9 at year’s end.

Restaurant owners continue to mull a legal challenge to the larger increase, saying it’s unfair and should have gone through the Legislature. Business groups, meanwhile, are preparing for a fight in the Legislature over Cuomo’s broader proposal. The Business Council of New York State, an influential organization of state business leaders, this week estimated that raising the wage to $15 for all workers would increase total private sector labor costs by $15.7 billion a year.

“In my particular business it would mean a 20 percent increase in prices,” said Bill Pompa, president of Mr. Subb, an 18-store sandwich chain in the Albany area. “I understand you can’t make the minimum wage and support a family. But I don’t think the minimum wage was ever designed to support a family.”

New York law allowed Cuomo to raise the minimum wage for a particular industry without legislative approval. But raising the wage for all workers would require legislation and a fight with opponents.

Related: FACT SHEET: It’s Time to Raise The Minimum Wage

New Yorkers in favor of raising minimum wage to $15 per hour: poll

Feudalism!

(Reuters) - A solid majority of New York state residents are in favor of raising the minimum wage over the next several years to $15 an hour, according to a new poll released on Friday.

According to the survey conducted by Quinnipiac University, 62 percent of New York voters, across every gender, age and regional group, supported raising the minimum wage.

Republican voters surveyed were the sole exception, with 65 percent opposing the idea, while 85 percent of Democrats said they would support such an initiative.

Among voters overall, the poll found 35 percent were opposed while 3 percent did not know.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, proposed on Sept. 10 that the minimum wage be increased over the next six years to $15 an hour. In New York City, the proposal calls for that wage to reach its target by the end of 2018.

This would mirror a state order signed last week that applies only to the fast-food industry. However, an increase for all industries will require lawmakers' approval.

A Cuomo proposal for a more modest minimum-wage increase was opposed by the Republican-led state Senate earlier this year.

The current hourly minimum wage in New York State is $8.75 and will increase to $9 on Dec. 31.

The poll found 8 percent did not want any increase at all, while 41 percent wanted the increase to be less than $15 an hour. A further 37 percent thought it should be raised to $15 an hour while 11 percent thought it should go even higher.

Quinnipiac conducted the telephone poll from Sept. 10 through 15th, calling 1,366 New York State voters. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percent.

Does a dollar really go farther in South Dakota than other states?

(rapidcityjournal.com) - Could South Dakota actually have the highest minimum wage in the country?

Well, in a relative sense, when comparing the cost of living here with other states, the answer becomes a resounding "yes," according to a recent Washington Post analysis.

Of course, some Rushmore State residents may beg to differ, especially when comparing gas and food prices here to elsewhere.

But Niraj Chokshi, the Post’s state and local policy blogger, said the economic grass is indeed greener for South Dakota residents, whose buying power gets a boost from the state’s relatively low cost of housing and other living expenses.

"While minimum wages range from the federal floor of $7.25 in 20 states to $9.47 in Washington state, they are only as valuable as what they can buy, which also varies by geography, according to an analysis of purchasing power by state,” Chokshi wrote in a July 22 blog post, referring to one of three recent state-by-state comparisons of South Dakota's favorable cost of living.

Chokshi said South Dakota’s official minimum wage of $8.50 adjusts to $9.70 per hour, tops among adjusted wages in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Elsewhere among the top five states, that $9.74 per hour wage in Washington State drops to $9.18 in actual buying power when adjusted for buying power.

Neighboring Oregon ($9.25/hour) benefits slightly because of a cost of living adjustment, with $9.37 in buying power. Rhode Island and Vermont also offer minimums in excess of $9 per hour, with the adjusted minimum wages staying roughly the same, Chokshi wrote.

On the other end of the scale, New York’s high cost of living drops that state’s adjusted minimum wage from $8.50 to $7.59. Hawaii’s minimum of $7.50 per hour plummets to $6.67 after the cost of living adjustment.

“A dollar really does go a long way in South Dakota. That’s a true advantage when competing with businesses in other states,” said Bryan Walker, executive director of the Spearfish Economic Development Corporation, in a news release from the Rushmore Region Economic Development Group.

Home and housing prices appear to be the driving force in the state’s low cost of living.

According to a comparison of housing costs by state on trulia.com, an online residential real estate site for home buyers, sellers, renters and real estate professionals, South Dakota ranked 50th in the nation with an average for-sale listing price of $234,259.

Average rental costs in the state’s two largest metropolitan areas ranged from $372 per bedroom in Rapid City to $412 per bedroom in Sioux Falls.

Two other recent reports from the Tax Foundation included one ranking South Dakota among the top five states comparing the value of $100 in buying goods and services.

In Mississippi, $100 will buy $115.74, with South Dakota ($113.38) closely trailing Arkansas ($114.74), Missouri and Alabama (both at $113.51).

In the District of Columbia, that same $100 is only worth $84.60, the report said.

South Dakota also fared well in another Tax Foundation report that found the state’s per-capita disposable income rises 13.4 percent when the cost of living is factored, putting the state among the top 5 nationally.

All of that is music to the ears of state economic development officials tasked with bringing new business and industry to the state.

“South Dakota has always used our low cost of doing business and great business climate to attract employers, while at the same time highlighting the advantages of South Dakota's cost of living in our workforce marketing efforts. We plan to continue and expand those efforts,” said Mary Lehecka Nelson, marketing director for the Governor’s Office of Economic Development in Pierre.

Nelson said a new state website, youcanliveinSouthDakota.com, includes a real wage calculator that compares South Dakota to other locations. Full Story

New York Plans $15-an-Hour Minimum Wage for Fast Food Workers

The Horror!

(nytimes) - 07/22/15 The labor protest movement that fast-food workers in New York City began nearly three years ago has led to higher wages for workers all across the union. On Wednesday, it paid off for the people who started it.

A panel appointed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo recommended on Wednesday that the minimum wage be raised for employees of fast-food chain restaurants throughout the state to $15 an hour over the next few years. Wages would be raised faster in New York City than in the rest of the state to account for the higher cost of living there.

The panel’s recommendations, which are expected to be put into effect by an order of the state’s acting commissioner of labor, represent a major triumph for the advocates who have rallied burger-flippers and fry cooks to demand pay that covers their basic needs. They argued that taxpayers were subsidizing the workforces of some multinational corporations, like McDonald’s, that were not paying enough to keep their workers from relying on food stamps and other welfare benefits.

The $15 wage would represent a raise of more than 70 percent for workers earning the state’s current minimum wage of $8.75 an hour. Advocates for low-wage workers said they believed the mandate would quickly spur raises for employees in other industries across the state, and a jubilant Mr. Cuomo predicted that other states would follow his lead.

Related: Raising the Minimum Wage Is the “Free Market” Thing to Do

Answering Arguments against the Living Wage

Five facts about the minimum wage.

Nebraska sees jobs decline after minimum wage hike

(journalstar.com) - Nebraska was one of two states that raised its minimum wage in 2015 and saw jobs decline in the first half of the year.

Of 11 states that increased the minimum wage at the beginning of 2015 through either legislation or ballot initiatives, payroll gains through June exceeded the U.S. average in six, while five, including Nebraska, lagged behind, according to Labor Department figures issued Tuesday in Washington.

South Dakota had the largest growth in payrolls (2 percent) and was also the state with the biggest increase in its wage floor ($1.25). Of the two states in this group with the highest overall minimum wage ($9.15), Vermont had job growth just above the national average and Connecticut was just below. West Virginia and Nebraska showed declines in employment in the first six months of this year.

Nebraska voters approved a minimum wage increase last year. The state minimum wage increased from $7.25 an hour to $8 an hour on Jan. 1, and it will increase to $9 an hour on Jan. 1, 2016.

The mixed data do little to settle the debate on whether raising the minimum wage impacts employment. Some economists argue that increases have little or no ill effects on hiring and therefore will boost household income and spending. Others say raising the wage floor kills jobs and hurts unskilled and low-paid workers, the very people they’re meant to help.

Comparing the last six months of 2014 with the first half of this year, payroll gains accelerated in seven states and slowed in four. Still, employment only grew as fast as the U.S. average in Arkansas in the last half of 2014.

Legislated increases in the pay floor in Alaska, Delaware and Minnesota didn't take effect at the start of the year, so they were left off the chart. The minimum wage rose automatically in states such as Washington, Oregon and Florida where it is indexed to inflation, and they too were eliminated from the chart because the increases were modest in comparison.

Minimum Wages Are Rising Across the US. Should They Apply to Minors?

(Slate.com) = The minimum wage is having a moment. As the cost of living sails past them, cities and states across the country are ditching the federal base and raising the pay floor to catch up. Last January, 11 states and the District of Columbia raised their minimum wage as the result of legislative action or voter initiatives. Twenty-nine states currently boast minimum wages above the federal rate, and cities like Seattle, San Francisco, and soon Los Angeles—whose city council is poised to raise the minimum wage to $15—have nearly doubled it. While the popularity of higher base pay isn’t surprising in blue states and progressive metropolises, the minimum wage is also inching up in solidly conservative places like, Arkansas, South Dakota, Alaska, and Nebraska. In some of those places—both blue and red—legislators have tried to make sure one group doesn’t benefit: minors.

South Dakota residents voted to raise the state’s minimum wage to $8.50 last year, but this March, Gov. Dennis Daugaard signed into law a bill that sets a separate, lower rate of $7.50 an hour for workers under the age of 18. (Unlike the wage hike, the minimum wage for minors will not annually adjust for the cost of living.) Last April, Minnesota folded a subminimum youth wage into its overall wage increase. The most recent example didn't quite make it to the finish line: A bill in Nebraska designed to establish a lower minimum wage for student workers aged 18 and younger broke a filibuster and advanced through two rounds of debate before finally dying on the floor of the nonpartisan unicameral Legislature. State Sen. Laura Ebke, a self-proclaimed“Republican and conservative libertarian,” introduced LB599 just months after Nebraska voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to increase the state’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour by 2016. Nebraska’s “Student Minimum Wage” proposal fell just four votes shy of the supermajority required under the state constitution to amend a law passed by public vote. Noting a “limited window of opportunity,” Ebke says she has no plans to reintroduce a similar bill in future legislative sessions.

Why raise the minimum wage, only to try and lower it for the youngest workers? While critics of the Nebraska bill portrayed it as a conservative attempt to dial back the minimum wage and unjustly discriminate against the voteless, its defenders described it as a plan to save high school jobs, provide “educational” opportunities, and boost the rural economy. Echoing their conservative peers in the South Dakota Legislature, supporters of LB599 warned that Nebraska’s recent wage hike could prevent many small businesses from hiring student workers. Without a bill like LB599, supporters claimed, rural mom-and-pop shops hiring high school students for low wages would be more likely to hire part-time adult workers who don’t require hand-holding and can legally handle tasks like selling alcohol or manning power tools. The lower wage, Ebke wrote on her website, “may help to incentivize employers to give young workers their first chance at a job.” (Of course, attempts to secure exceptions from minimum wage laws aren’t exclusive to pay for minors: After aiding in the campaign for a higher minimum wage in L.A., union leaders there are seeking an exemption for businesses with collective bargaining.)

In Nebraska, the effort to reduce the minimum wage for young workers was backed by the Nebraska Grocery Industry Association, whose members are likely among the biggest employers in the state of high school–aged workers. Despite a highly visible, monthslong campaign to increase the minimum wage—and despite the fact that Nebraska (save for minor exemptions) has always enforced a uniform minimum wage—the group and other supporters of LB599 alleged that the original initiative wasn’t clear about which workers it would help and that most Nebraska voters aren’t opposed to paying students less than their senior counterparts. According to Kathy Siefken, executive director of the Nebraska Grocery Industry Association, “no one voted on that.”

Nearly unheard from in the debate were student workers themselves, despite the bill’s underlying question: How much are student workers really worth? Eighteen-year-old Grace Miller, a high school senior in Arcadia, Nebraska, who’s been working part-time jobs since she turned 16, told me, “I think we deserve as much pay as the adults.” For the last eight months, Miller has been working after-school shifts at Orscheln’s Farm & Home store in Broken Bow, Nebraska. “We’ve got as much going on as they do, maybe even more. Most adults just work an eight-hour day, while I go to school and then go to work for four hours.”

Conservatives have long argued that higher minimum wages deplete employment opportunities, especially for young and entry-level workers. To make up for the higher wages, they say, employers will freeze or slow down their hiring practices. Citing the most extreme possibility put forth by a February 2014 Congressional Budget Office study, Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell claimed raising the federal minimum wage to $10.10, as President Obama has pushed for, would "destroy half a million to 1 million jobs."

So does lowering the minimum wage for minors really create, or at least preserve, an incentive to hire them? And could it mitigate some of the supposedly deleterious effects of a wage hike? The evidence is hardly conclusive, but several previous studies suggest it might. According to a 2003 cross-national analysis from the Federal Reserve, “the evidence … suggests that the employment effects of minimum wages vary considerably across countries. In particular, disemployment effects of minimum wages appear to be smaller in countries that have subminimum wage provisions for youths." A study of state-sponsored minimum wages conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research in 1991 offered similar results. To varying degrees, Australia and much of Europe allow for youth subminimum wage provisions. Federal law in the United States allows employers to pay workers under the age of 20 a training wage as low as $4.25 an hour during their first 90 days of employment.

But the Nebraska debate highlights other questions likely to shape the debate if and when similar bills emerge: Should exemptions be made for minors with dependents, or who are no longer enrolled in school? If it’s illegal to ask someone’s age in a job interview, can an employer even legally utilize a youth minimum wage bill? And what message does such a law send to young workers? “As a grocery store manager, I had lazy and inexperienced employees that were over the age of 19, and I had some that, yes, were under the age of 19,” Nebraska state Sen. Adam Morfeld said during a hearing on LB599. “We shouldn’t be characterizing a certain class of individuals as more lazy or less experienced. We should be judging them on their work ethic. We shouldn’t be making arbitrary distinctions based on age.”

No other states are currently considering a similar proposal, but as the minimum wage continues to rise in states and cities across the country, there’s a good chance conservative opposition—having won once already in South Dakota—will try it on for size again. Full Story

California: Los Angeles expected to Raise Minimum Wage $15 an Hour

THE HORROR!

(nytimes) May 19 '15 - LOS ANGELES — The union’s second-largest city voted on Tuesday to increase its minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020 from the current $9 an hour, in what is perhaps the most significant victory so far in the national push to raise the minimum wage.

The increase — which the Los Angeles City Council passed in a 14-1 vote — comes as workers across the country are rallying for higher wages, and several large companies, including Facebook and Walmart, have moved to raise their lowest wages. Several other cities, including San Francisco, Seattle and Oakland, Calif., have already approved increases, and dozens more are considering doing the same. In 2014, a number of Republican-leaning states like Alaska and South Dakota also raised their state-level minimum wage by referendum.

The impact is likely to be particularly strong in Los Angeles, where, according to some estimates, more than 40 percent of the city’s work force earns less than $15 an hour.

“The effects here will be the biggest by far,” said Michael Reich, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was commissioned by city leaders here to conduct several studies on the potential effects of a minimum-wage increase. “The proposal will bring wages up in a way we haven’t seen since the 1960s. There’s a sense spreading that this is the new norm, especially in areas that have high costs of housing.”

Tuesday’s vote could set off a wave of minimum wage increases across Southern California, and the groups pressing for the increases say the new pay scales would change the way of life for the region’s vast low-wage work force.

Indeed, much of the debate here has centered on the potential regional impact. Many of the low-wage workers who form the backbone of Southern California’s economy live in the suburban cities of Los Angeles. Proponents of the wage increase say they expect that several nearby cities, including Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Pasadena, would follow Los Angeles’ lead and pass ordinances for higher wages in the coming months. Full Story

* * * * 

Expect US Conservatives to protest LA  for even considering a wage hike. NOT.