Poverty

What You Need to Know About Washington, D.C.’s Initiative 77 and the Minimum Wage

On Tuesday, Washington, D.C., voters will have an opportunity to vote on Initiative 77, a ballot measure supported by a wide array of progressive and labor organizations that would eliminate the subminimum wage for tipped workers and give many working families a much-needed raise. Initiative 77 would increase the tipped minimum wage to match the full …

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Eight years after the last minimum wage increase, Democrats want to give 41 million workers a raise

The federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 an hour since July 24, 2009—for eight years. Thanks to Republicans in Congress and the White House, it won’t be going up any time soon, and though many states have raised their minimum wages, 21 states remain stuck at $7.25 an hour. That’s a poverty wage. …

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Bosses are stealing billions from their workers’ paychecks, but it’s not treated like a crime

 Here’s a kind of theft almost no one goes to prison for. When an employer doesn’t pay workers the money they’ve earned, it has the same effect as if they got paid and then walked out on the street and had their pockets picked. But somehow wage theft—not paying workers the minimum wage for the hours …

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Would You Trust Henry Kissinger with Your Social Security?

Years ago a political scientist said that the mass media can’t influence what people think, but it can influence what people think about. Today it does both. If you’re a billionaire who wants to manipulate public opinion, that means you’ll keep feeding it stories that serve your ideology and self-interest. Hedge fund billionaire Peter G. …

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Newly-Elected Congressman: Anti-Poverty Programs Are ‘A Bribe Not To Work That Hard’

Anti-poverty aid programs are nothing more than a bribe to keep low-income people from getting married or going to work, according to a new U.S. Congressman from Wisconsin. “When you look at that amount of money, which is in essence a bribe not to work that hard or a bribe not to marry someone with …

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Federal Unemployment Benefits Expire Due To Congressional Inaction

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) urged lawmakers to embrace a package that could avert the so-called fiscal cliff, noting that 2.1 million Americans have already lost federal unemployment benefits as a result of Congressional inaction. “From this point on, it is lose-lose,” Feinstein explained, during an appearance on Fox News Sunday. “My big worry, is, a …

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The Price of Cheap: Slave Labor, No Jobs

Cheap. Low prices. Bargains. It’s the American way of recent decades–a promise we’ve been given by everyone from politicians to corporate marketing campaigns. And most people find it hard to see the devastating cost to us as a society. But, sometimes things happen at once that can give a very clear picture, if you look. …

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Australia Seeks to ‘Manage’ the Poor While Making Them Poorer

When Mitt Romney derides the legions of Americans who are supposedly utterly dependent on government and are ruining the country’s entrepreneurial spirit, we should remember that while this disdain for the poor may have a uniquely American inflection, the greed-is-good ethos flourishes in other rich nations. In the land down under, we see a mirror …

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Madeline Messa

Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.