Category Archives: Press

Apparently Justin Bieber has nothing to do with the new Los Angeles billboard that uses his image and name to oppose raising the minimum wage, on the grounds that such a hike would keep the teenage unemployment rate high. Rather, Rick Berman — the Washington lobbyist who works for the restaurant industry — simply bought […]

It’s time we gave working families a wage they can truly live on Earlier this year, lawmakers in my home state of New York agreed to increase the statewide minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 over the next three years. It’s time for the federal government to follow suit–and not just because it would give […]

In his State of the Union address earlier this year, President Obama called for Congress to raise the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour by 2015, with automatic adjustments upward to reflect increasing costs of living going forward. But with the current level of $7.25 an hour, the increase would amount to an almost […]

By Hamilton Nolan The deadly collapse of a garment factory in Bangladesh has sparked calls for better worker treatment. The revelation that Apple manages to avoid almost all taxes has drawn vague calls for tax reform. A more direct path to fairness: let’s just have a reasonable international minimum wage. Read more

By Jesse Jackson The April jobs report has been hailed as good news by the nation’s newspapers. But a look under the numbers is more sobering. In Chicago and cities across the country, extreme poverty remains high, and the jobless still haunt our streets. Washington would rather sell optimism. We’ve seen 38 straight months of […]

Congress is currently considering bipartisan legislation providing an amnesty for America’s 11 million illegal immigrants, probably combined with extra visas for skilled workers and an agricultural guestworker program. But principled liberals and conservatives should both demand that any immigration reform proposal also include a sharp rise in the federal minimum wage. The reason is simple. […]