Minimum Wage

A Global Minimum Wage Would Reduce Poverty And Corporate Power

December 27, 2024 Lawrence S. Wittner, Foreign Policy in Focus. Create! Class Struggle, Global Minimum Wage, Minimum Wage, Poverty, wealth inequality

In today’s world of widespread poverty and unprecedented wealth, how about raising the wages of the most poorly-paid workers? This October, the World Bank reported that “8.5 percent of the global population―almost 700 million people―live today on less than $2.15 per day,” while “44 percent of the global population―around 3.5 billion people―live today on less than $6.85 per day.” Meanwhile, “global poverty reduction has slowed to a near standstill.” In early 2024, the charity group Oxfam International noted that, since 2020, “148 top corporations made $1.8 trillion in profit, 52 percent up on 3-year average, and dished out huge payouts to rich shareholders.”

Paid Sick Leave And Higher Minimum Wage On The Missouri Ballot

September 30, 2024 Kay Mills, Portside. Organize! Ballot Initiative, Minimum Wage, Missouri, Paid Sick Leave, Worker Rights and Jobs

“By challenging feelings of isolation and polarization, breaking down division, and creating long-term relationships, we can achieve our goal of building a democracy and economy that works for all of us.”

Reporting On California’s Fast-Food Minimum Wage Raise Comes With Fear

January 21, 2024 Conor Smyth, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! California, Fast Food, Finance and the Economy, Minimum Wage

What’s scarier than a shark attack? An increase in the minimum wage. At least that’s what many corporate media outlets seem to want you to believe, given the apocalyptic tone of much of the coverage of California’s recent decision to raise the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 an hour, starting this April, a bump from the current level of $16. While outlets like the New York Times (10/23/23), the Associated Press (9/28/23), CalMatters (12/21/23, 9/28/23) and the Sacramento Bee (9/29/23, 9/15/23, 9/11/23) have responsibly covered the policy change, highlighting the large positive effects that it will likely have on workers, others are obsessively accentuating the negatives.

Youth Subminimum Wages And Why They Should Be Eliminated

January 14, 2024 Nina Mast, Economic Policy Institute. Educate! Child labor, Minimum Wage, Worker Rights and Jobs, Youth Workers

In 2023, the issue of child labor re-emerged as a national crisis. Federal data on the rise of child labor violations and numerous investigative reports of widespread illegal youth employment garnered sustained media attention, sparking outrage from the public and lawmakers alike. At the same time, EPI has documented an ongoing, coordinated effort to roll back existing child labor protections that is gaining momentum in states across the country. Legislative proposals to weaken child labor protections—some of which have already been enacted—allow employers to hire teens for more dangerous jobs or extend the hours young people can work on school nights.

$15, Take A Bow; $20 In Our Sights!

January 13, 2024 Gabrielle Gurley, Portside. Organize! Fight for 15, Low wa, Minimum Wage, Worker Rights

The New Year blew in with higher wages for workers in dozens of jurisdictions across the country. Twenty-five states and 60 localities will raise their minimum wages in 2024. What is clear from even a cursory scan of these increases is that while a $15 minimum wage is the floor, many localities and some states have already passed wage increases that are higher than what the Fight for $15 movement coalesced around more than a decade ago. A number have landed on a $17 minimum wage for some or all employees, an encouraging development in the ongoing struggle to establish living wages nationwide.

Chris Hedges Report: Kshama Sawant’s New ‘Workers Strike Back’ Coalition

March 11, 2023 Chris Hedges, The Real News Network. Resistance Report Kshama Sawant, Minimum Wage, Seattle, Worker Rights and Jobs

After a decade on Seattle City Council, socialist Kshama Sawant is declining to seek reelection and will instead launch a new national coalition called Workers Strike Back this March in cities around the US. The goal of Workers Strike Back is to build an independent workers’ movement that fights for the interests of the working class, rather than the agenda of either corporate party. This coalition will organize for a $ 25 an hour minimum wage, build grassroots labor unions, fight for a clean energy transition, battle anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ legislation, and more.

Another California Minimum Wage Earthquake?

February 1, 2022 Martin Bennett, Beyond Chron. Organize! California, Finance and the Economy, Minimum Wage, Worker Rights and Jobs

California is the epicenter for a nationwide grassroots movement to raise the wage floor for American workers. On January 1st, the state set $15 an hour as the floor for large employers and $14 an hour for small ones (rising to $15 for all in 2023). Meanwhile, thirty-nine California cities and counties have established higher rates, with Emeryville the highest at $17.13 an hour and most well above $15. The Fight for Fifteen movement has reshaped public opinion, pushing local and state officials around the country to approve a $15 per hour minimum wage. Eleven states and fifty-four cities and counties have $15 minimum wage floors, according to the National Employment Law Project (NELP), and four in ten workers live in states on the pathway to a $15 minimum wage.

Despite Historic Minimum Wage Increases, The South Still Trails Behind

January 14, 2022 Rebekah Barber, Facing South. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Florida, Minimum Wage, Worker Rights and Jobs

2022 marks 10 years since fast food workers in New York first went on strike to demand higher wages, better working conditions, and the right to unionize — sparking the Fight For $15 movement. Since that time, the movement has gained traction, with California raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour and several other states passing legislation that will gradually do so. As the ongoing global pandemic has drawn attention to the fact that the people who keep the country running are overworked and underpaid, workers have continued to strike for higher wages and union rights. In many cases, their demands are being met. Showing the tremendous strides made by Fight for $15, a record number of states and localities are raising their wages this year.

$15 Wage Becoming New Average In Some Industries

August 11, 2021 Sharon Zhang, Truthout. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Minimum Wage, Wages, Worker Rights and Jobs

New data show that, as wages have risen across much of the economy, the average pay for restaurant and supermarket workers has risen above $15 an hour for the first time, reports The Washington Post. The milestone marks a win for both workers and, potentially, the Fight for $15 movement. Employers struggling to fill low-wage positions as businesses reopened over the past year have blamed their problem on a so-called worker shortage. But in reality, economists say, it’s more likely that there was a wage shortage as workers were unwilling to do a job that is more dangerous during the pandemic for the same wage as before COVID-19 was raging through the country. Now, it seems, employers are responding, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data analyzed by The Washington Post.

Workers Insist The $15 Minimum Wage Fight Isn’t Over

March 15, 2021 Joe Maniscalco, DC Report. Organize! Congress, Democrats, Joe Biden, Minimum Wage

Women comprise the overwhelming majority of frontline workers who risk their lives and the lives of their families during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. But the Democrats who they helped retake the White House and the Senate don’t seem so interested in rewarding that support. The proposal to set a $15 an hour minimum wage by 2025 in President Joe Biden’s signature $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan could have helped lift some 74 million poor and low-income women out of poverty, according to the Poor People’s Campaign. But eight Senate Democrats opposed the measure. Team Biden also declined to challenge arcane and non-binding parliamentary procedures, supposedly prohibiting a $15 minimum wage in the coronavirus relief package.

Doing Too Little In This Crisis Will Come Back To Haunt The US Economy

March 6, 2021 Thea M. Lee, Economic Policy Institute. Educate! American Rescue Plan, Congress, Minimum Wage, Recession

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP) is essential to a robust and equitable recovery. The risk of doing too little is far greater than the risk of doing too much, and the American Rescue Plan meets the scale of the crisis. The overall size and components of the ARP have been carefully studied and considered. Given the balance of risks facing the economy and the danger of delay, passing the plan at its current scale and composition is the most prudent thing policymakers can do to ensure a rapid and fair recovery. Clearly, this is necessary. As the Senate debates what belongs in the final relief bill this week, policymakers must not shortchange aid to state and local governments, which is essential to a robust recovery.

Democrats Torpedo $15 Minimum Wage Hike

March 1, 2021 Marcus Day, WSWS. Educate! Congress, Democrats, Joe Biden, Minimum Wage

On Thursday, US President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party effectively ended efforts to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour as part of the COVID-19 stimulus package making its way through Congress. The federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour has not been increased since 2009, and the dropping of the raise will leave millions of workers in utter destitution. The White House and congressional Democrats have falsely sought to present themselves as having their hands tied, holding up the advisory ruling of the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth McDonough, as an excuse. McDonough, an unelected official appointed to her role by the Democrats in 2012, ruled that the wage hike is not allowable in a bill using the budget reconciliation process.

It’s Time To Make Large Corporations Pay Living Wages

February 28, 2021 Phil Mattera, DC Report. Organize! Amazon, Minimum Wage, Walmart, Worker Rights

Landing a job in the ’80s with a large corporation was, even for blue-collar workers, a ticket to good wages, generous benefits and a secure retirement. Women and workers of color did not share fully in this bounty, but they generally did better at big firms than small ones. All this began to unravel in the 1980s. Big business used the excuse of global competition to chip away at the living standards of the domestic workforce. Assault on unions, which were key in bringing about job improvements, proliferated. Meatpacking, for instance, what had been high wage and high-density union, turned into a bastion of precarious labor.

The Fake Debate Over A Minimum Wage

February 24, 2021 Richard D. Wolff, Counterpunch. Educate! Capitalism, Liberal class, Minimum Wage, Worker Rights

Capitalism’s “conservative” defenders yet again oppose raising the minimum wage. They fought raising it in the past much as they tried to prevent the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) that first mandated a U.S. minimum wage. The major argument opponents have used is this: setting or raising a minimum wage threatens small employers. They may collapse or else fire employees; either way, jobs are lost. What is conveniently assumed here is a necessary contradiction between minimum wages and small business jobs. That assumption enables opponents to claim that not setting a legal minimum wage, like not raising it, saves jobs. The system thus presents very poorly paid workers with this choice: low wages or no wages.

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