Free Republic

Washington state’s minimum wage will increase 54 cents to $16.28 an hour next year. The Washington Department of Labor and Industries made the announcement Friday, The Seattle Times reported. A full-time worker making that wage would earn nearly $34,000 per year. The 3.37% increase is a cost-of-living adjustment based on the federal Consumer Price Index. Washington’s minimum wage of $15.74 an hour is currently the highest state-level minimum wage in the nation, according to state labor officials. …

U.S. restaurants and stores are rapidly raising pay in an urgent effort to attract more applicants and keep up with a flood of customers as the pandemic eases. McDonald’s, Sheetz and Chipotle are just some of the latest companies to follow Amazon, Walmart and Costco in boosting wages, in some cases to $15 an hour or higher. The pay gains are, of course, a boon to these employees. Restaurants, bars, hotels and stores remain the lowest-paying industries, and many of their workers ran the risk of contracting COVID-19 on the job over the past year while white-collar employees were able...

Democratic presidential contender Julian Castro joined a march to a McDonald’s restaurant in North Carolina on Thursday to draw attention to workers’ efforts to raise the minimum wage and secure other protections. Nearly all the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have expressed support for the idea that the federal minimum wage should be more than doubled, to $15 an hour, and several were joining actions around the country Thursday. The McDonald’s annual shareholder meeting is also Thursday in Dallas. Striking cooks and cashiers planned to travel to the shareholder meeting, where they’ll attend a video town hall hosted by Sen. Bernie...

Bernie Sanders has opined for years on the necessity of raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, explaining that: By phasing in a pay raise for tens of millions of workers, we can improve living standards, lift families out of poverty, and provide a much-needed boost to our economy. Our bill will raise the wages of 41 million workers — an extra $3,500 a year in pay for full-time workers. The socialist Senator this past year introduced legislation in the Senate for the wage hike and while that didn't succeed (so far) has made the $15 wage call a...

A survey published on Wednesday shows 44 percent of Germans want the government to set an upper limit on how much companies can pay their employees. The number of respondents in favour of Germany setting a maximum salary clearly outweighed those who were against it, with only slightly over a quarter saying it was a bad idea. Twenty-nine percent, meanwhile, were undecided, the survey by Die Zeit showed. The idea was particularly popular in former communist east Germany, where a majority of 58 percent said they wanted salaries capped.

Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would benefit 927,400 city workers and pump $6.5 billion into the city's economy, according to state Labor Department report released Wednesday. The report predicted that Gov. Cuomo’s proposal for a $15 minimum wage would boost wages for 2.3 million workers across the state and generate $15.7 billion for New York's economy through increased consumer spending. ... Release of the report came a day after state Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-Suffolk County), who has expressed reservations about Cuomo's plan, said Senate Republicans needed more information about the proposal's impact. A report produced...

The Democratic Party on Friday adopted a call to raise the minimum wage to $15/hr as part of their established party platform heading into the 2016 election season. The move further polarizes the progressive wing of the party by moving them further to the left of both the Republican Party, and corporate centrist Democrats such as Hillary Clinton. In response to the Democratic Party’s vote, Terrence Wise, a Kansas City, Mo. McDonald’s and Burger King Worker and member of the National Organizing Committee of the Fight for $15, issued the following statement.

He hit headlines earlier this year for declaring every one of his 120 employees would earn a minimum wage of $70,000. But now Dan Price - CEO of Seattle-based credit card processing firm Gravity Payments, who lowered his $1 million salary to better compensate employees - has fallen on hard times as a result of his bold move. However the 31-year-old, who is renting out his house to keep the salary increases going, refuses to give up. 'I'm working as hard as I ever worked to make it work,' he told The New York Times. 'I haven’t made this little...

NEW YORK (AP) — Fast-food workers in New York state would see a super-sized raise under a plan to phase in a $15 minimum wage — the first time a state has singled out a particular industry for such an increase. The hike, approved Wednesday by the state Wage Board, would increase gradually over three years in New York City and six years for the rest of the state. It would apply to employees at any fast-food restaurant with 30 or more locations, impacting an estimated 200,000 workers. "You cannot live and support a family on $18,000 a year in...