As Congress considers raising the nation’s minimum wage, it’s a good time to point out that it’s not just for teens earning pocket money. At $7.25 an hour, the current minimum wage hasn’t been raised for three years. Proposals in both the House and Senate would increase the federal minimum wage to $9.80 by July …
Opponents of increasing the nation’s minimum wage always fall back on the argument that it doesn’t need to be raised because it’s mostly teenagers working part-time for extra pocket money who are getting that hourly figure (which right now is $7.25). A new study shows that stereotype isn’t true. In fact, the majority of minimum …
Profile of Minimum Wage Workers Isn’t What You Think Read More »
When you think of minimum wage workers, it’s a good bet firefighters don’t come to mind. Yet in Scranton, Pa., firefighters are risking their lives rushing into burning buildings, all for $7.25 an hour. A fight between Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty and the City Council over the city budget has resulted in a pay slash …
Scranton Firefighters Risking Lives for Minimum Wage Read More »
Is it patriotic to ship American jobs overseas? President Obama doesn’t think so. He’s right, of course. We live in a globally-connected world, but let’s face it: Home-grown corporations must first focus on their own backyards–a novel concept all to many, it seems. Obama implicitly raised the question yesterday during his Insourcing American Jobs Forum …
Congress this morning extended for two months unemployment insurance (UI) for America’s jobless workers. Republicans in the House earlier this week had blocked the UI extenstion, but after suffering badly in opinion polling, they announced they’d join with 89 out of 100 senators from both political parties who’d already voted to renew unemployment aid for two months—with no cuts and no …
UPDATE: Tomorrow morning, Aug. 8, thousands of striking workers will join mass picket lines and rallies at more than 100 Verizon work locations across New York and New Jersey to push the highly profitable company to back off its sweeping demands. The list of picket lines and rallies is here: http://district1.cwa-union.org/news/entry/verizon_workers_fight_for_middle_class_jobs_-_join_the_picket_line And in the Washington, D.C., area, …
While 25 million unemployed and underemployed U.S. workers are drowning, CEO pay skyrocketed by 23 percent, for an average salary of $11.4 million in 2010, according to the AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch. Released today, data compiled at PayWatch also show CEOs have done little to create badly-needed jobs, instead sitting on a record $1.93 trillion in …
The improved jobs figures out last Friday obscured the ongoing decline in public-sector jobs. As the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics noted when releasing the March unemployment data: Employment in local government continued to trend down over the month. Local government has lost 416,000 jobs since an employment peak in September 2008. The loss of …
Women, Black Workers Hard Hit by Attacks on Public Employees Read More »
Too often when economic times get tough, scapegoats are found in the wrong places. Wall Street greed and double-dealing sparked much of the nation’s recent near-financial collapse, yet many in the chattering classes instead are attacking public employees for this rolling recession. Economist Dean Baker puts the situation in perspective: Fifteen million people are not out of …
Some 290,000 jobs were created in April, the fourth straight month in more than year the nation has seen gains in employment. Yet the unemployment rate worsened to 9.9 percent from 9.7 percent in March, according to data released this morning by the Department of Labor. The total unemployment figure, which includes those who are …
290,000 Jobs Created in April, Jobless Rate Worsens to 9.9 Percent Read More »
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.
