Articles on Labor

Five Facts about Federal Minimum Wage

1. Adjusted for inflation, the federal minimum wage peaked in 1968 2. Less than half (45%) of the 2.6 million hourly workers who were at or below the federal minimum in 2015 were ages 16 to 24. (That 2.6 million represents less than 2% of all wage and salary workers. ) 3. Twenty-nine states, plus the District of Columbia and nearly two dozen cities and counties, have set their own higher minimums. (Together, these states include about 61% of the nation's working-age (16 and over) population,) 4. About 20.6 million people (or 30% of all hourly, non-self-employed workers 18 and older) are "near-minimum-wage" workers. The near-minimum-wage workers are young (just under half are 30 or younger), mostly white (76%), and more likely to be female (54%) than male (46%). A majority (56%) have no more than a high-school education. 5. The restaurant/food service industry is the single biggest employer of near-minimum-wage workers.

EFFECTS of raising the minimum wage

According to simple supply-and-demand theory, employers may respond to a minimum wage increase by: 1. hiring fewer workers, 2. reducing the number of hours their employees work, 3. passing on some of the cost of higher wages to their customers in the form of higher prices, and/or 4. absorbing some of the cost of higher wages in the form of lower profits.

VALUE of the minimum wage

Because the minimum wage is not adjusted automatically for inflation, its real (inflation-adjusted) value tends to fall in the years between enacted increases — as happened during the 1980s, from the mid-1990s until 2007, and after 2009. Such declines in the purchasing power of the minimum wage lower minimum-wage workers' living standards.

BENEFITS of minimum wage for employers

Beyond simple supply and demand theory, increasing the minimum wage may also spur businesses to operate more efficiently and employees to work harder. Employers may look for ways to increase productivity, such as setting higher performance standards for their employees or investing more in employee training. A higher wage may motivate employees to work harder because they feel they are being paid fairly and have more to lose by getting fired. This combination of efficiency improvements from both employers and employees decreases job turnover, reduces employers' hiring costs, and can lead to employment gains.

Recent attempts to revise minimum wage

Democrats under Obama wanted to increase the federal minimum wage and tie it to inflation in the future. Republicans refused.

Who Is Covered by the Minimum Wage?

Employees of any business or enterprise with GROSS ANNUAL SALES or business done of at least $500,000 and employees of any business that participates in interstate commerce must be paid the minimum wage. So too must employees of federal, state, and local government agencies, hospitals and schools, and most domestic workers Certain exceptions apply to YOUNG WORKERS, full-time students and student learners, and disabled workers. Further, TIPPED WORKERS have a minimum base wage of $2.13 per hour. If such a worker's tips in a given pay period plus the base wage do not add up to the regular minimum wage, the employer is required to pay the difference; this requirement, however, can be hard to enforce.

Economics Isn't Textbook: Why We Need to Raise the Minimum Wage

In the last few decades increased worker productivity has NOT resulted in workers getting their fair share. owners take all the profit. Another way to increase worker bargaining power, what I want to focus on here, is increases in the minimum wage. Minimum wage workers have very little ability to effectively negotiate over wages, and an increase in the minimum wage can serve as a substitute for their lack of bargaining power. When the minimum wage is increased, firms do not have the option of threatening to replace workers with other workers who, due to their circumstances, would be willing to work for less than they are worth to the firm. In addition, when the minimum wage is increased at the federal level, firms cannot relocate to take advantage of lower minimum wages elsewhere

What Is a Minimum Wage?

Minimum wage laws set the lowest hourly rate an employer can legally pay certain workers. The federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 per hour. As of April 30, 2015, 29 states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages above the federal minimum wage.

Popularity stats of raising the Federal Minimum Wage to $15

Overall, 52% of people favored increasing the federal minimum to $15 an hour, but that idea was favored by just 21% of Trump supporters (versus 82% of Clinton backers). And while large majorities of blacks and Hispanics supported a $15 federal minimum wage, 54% of whites opposed it,

Opinion Pieces on Minimum Wage: Female Small business owner

Pro min wage "It will mean more money in the hands of those who need it, allowing them to pay for daily necessities without sacrificing their other basic needs. And increased wages means more money in peoples' pockets that they then put back into the economy, which is good for businesses" "Higher wages lead to happier employees who stay with me longer, and reduce my turnover and training costs. Because they stay on the job longer, they develop a robust knowledge of the products we sell and the services we provide. That knowledge, combined with the fact that they're happy to be earning above the current minimum wage, means excellent and enthusiastic customer service. Better customer service means a stronger bottom line. Need proof? In just 11 years, I've gone from would-be entrepreneur to owning and running 9 stores." "I'd like to see a leveling of the playing field so that fewer businesses are taking advantage of low wages, which cause workers to struggle to afford the basics and rely on government assistance."

Did Seattle's Minimum Wage Law go too far?

The City of Seattle has highest minimum wage law in the country. ($15 per hour) The increase led to steep declines in employment for low-wage workers, and a drop in hours for those who kept their jobs. Crucially, the negative impact of lost jobs and hours more than offset the benefits of higher wages — on average, low-wage workers earned $125 per month less because of the higher wage, a small but significant decline. "The goal of this policy was to deliver higher incomes to people who were struggling to make ends meet in the city," said Jacob Vigdor, a University of Washington economist who was one of the study's authors. "You've got to watch out because at some point you run the risk of harming the people you set out to help."

Who Is Paid the Minimum Wage?

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that in 2013, 5.5 million workers earned within 25 cents of the federal minimum wage. Three-quarters of these workers were at least 20 years old and two-fifths of them worked full time. The median family income of workers in this range was about $30,000.

Case Study of Minimum wage in Seattle

The FIRST Seattle minimum wage increase to $11/hour on April 1, 2015, led to: 1. a .5%increaseinhourlywagesforlowwageemployees(i.e.,thoseearning$19/hour or less) 2. modest reductions in employment 3. little change in total payroll for low-wage jobs (total payroll is the sum of wages for all hours worked across all employees) The SECOND Seattle minimum wage increase, to as much as $13/hour on January 1, 2016, resulted in: o a3%increaseinhourlywagesforlow-wageemployees o a 9% reduction in hours worked at wages below $19/hour. A disemployment effect of this size would occur if, for example, a business that employed 11 low wage workers per shift in 2014 cut back to about 10 workers per shift in 2016. o a reduction of over $100 million per year in total payroll for low-wage jobs, measured as total sum of increased wages received less wages lost due to employment reductions. Total payroll losses average about $125 per job per month. o The findings that total payroll for low-wage jobs declined rather than rose as a consequence of the 2016 minimum wage increase is at odds with most prior studies of minimum wage laws. These differences likely reflect methodological improvements made possible by Washington State's exceptional individual-level data. When we replicate methods used in previous studies, we produce the same results as previously found. And as noted above, survey data collected independently of this data analysis indicate that the inclusion of multiple-location businesses would not significantly alter the results.

Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938

The first federal U.S. minimum wage law has been revised since

Opinion: 3 Reasons the $15 Minimum Wage Is a Bad Way to Help the Poor

There Are Less Destructive Policies to Raise the Poor's Income 1. Minimum Wages Target Workers, Not the Poor. There are large segments of the poor that receive no direct benefit at all from the minimum wage - the unemployed, stay-at-home parents, Uber drivers and other "gig" employees, etc. And there are a large number of low-wage workers - think teenagers living at home with their parents - who aren't poor 2. Minimum Wages Hurt Marginalized Groups: Minimum wage laws create a barrier to getting a job that the privileged are better able to overcome than the underprivileged. When jobs are scarce, then immigrants, workers with few skills or little education, and those with limited English proficiency are going to have a harder time convincing employers that their labor is worth $15 an hour than their better-skilled, native, English-speaking competitors. 3. Some Minimum Wages Cause Unemployment: Obviously, there's some point at which a minimum wage is going to start causing unemployment - otherwise, why not set it at $100 an hour? Better alternatives: Unlike the minimum wage, a Negative Income Tax or Universal Basic Income (the two are often functionally identical) targets poverty, not employment.

Jesuit stand on Minimum Wage

To put it succinctly, raising the minimum wage is about dignity and it is about justice. It is clear from more than a century of Catholic teaching that work is at the heart of the social question, at the heart of human dignity. GOVERNMENT and EMPLOYERS have a moral obligation to ensure a fair wage. Pope Francis: "Work, to use a metaphor, "anoints" us with dignity, fills us with dignity, makes us similar to God, who has worked and still works, who always acts; it gives one the ability to maintain oneself, one's family, to contribute to the growth of one's own nation." Hence, as Bishop Blaire explained, wages are then much more than a mere product of economic bargaining. Rather, wages that do not allow workers to support themselves, their families, or the common good demean human dignity. Some will argue that the marketplace determines the level of wages and that the market should be allowed to function freely and without interference. Catholic teaching disagrees on two counts: the duty in justice of employers and the responsibilities in justice of government. The moral duties of employers, Bishop Blaire explained, is a vital piece of the conversation that often is ignored. The Catechism of the Catholic Church spells it out this way:A just wage is the legitimate fruit of work. To refuse or withhold it can be a grave injustice. In determining fair pay both the needs and the contributions of each person must be taken into account. "Remuneration for work should guarantee man the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for himself and his family on the material, social, cultural, and spiritual level, taking into account the role and the productivity of each, the state of the business, and the common good." Agreement between the parties is not sufficient to justify morally the amount to be received in wages. In addition to the moral duty of employers, government has a further responsibility for the common good which includes protection of human rights and the rights of workers. Setting a minimum wage, the bishop concluded, is just one way in which government has acted historically to protect worker dignity, encourage family formation, and ensure the basic needs of children. Bishop Stephen E. Blaire of the Diocese of Stockton told the U.S. Senate last month, "A just wage is a moral issue..."