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The first thing to understand about the minimum wage is that it is a classic case of understandable emotionalism and frustration versus concrete data and economic reality. So the clearest explanation is a pros-and-cons listing. On the pros side of increasing the minimum wage, people who are making it and who keep their jobs will make more money. Their increased earnings improve their purchasing power. The cons side is a little lengthier. Sharp increases in the minimum wage reduces the number of entry-level jobs This, in turn, reduces the opportunity for unskilled workers to start getting experience. This is common...

Wendy’s (WEN) said that self-service ordering kiosks will be made available across its 6,000-plus restaurants in the second half of the year as minimum wage hikes and a tight labor market push up wages. It will be up to franchisees whether to deploy the labor-saving technology, but Wendy’s President Todd Penegor did note that some franchise locations have been raising prices to offset wage hikes. McDonald’s (MCD) has been testing self-service kiosks. But Wendy’s, which has been vocal about embracing labor-saving technology, is launching the biggest potential expansion. It’s not surprising that some franchisees might face more of a labor-cost...

New studies flip climate-change notions upside down The sun will go into "hibernation" mode around 2030, and it has already started to get sleepy. At the Royal Astronomical Society's annual meeting in July, Professor Valentina Zharkova of Northumbria University in the UK confirmed it - the sun will begin its Maunder Minimum (Grand Solar Minimum) in 15 years. Other scientists had suggested years ago that this change was imminent, but Zharkova's model is said to have near-perfect accuracy. So what is a "solar minimum"? Our sun doesn't maintain a constant intensity. Instead, it cycles in spans of approximately 11 years....

New York state APPROVES $15 minimum wage for fast-food workers...the first time ANY state has set it that high New York state will gradually raise the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $15 an hour — the first time any state has set the minimum that high. Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration formally approved the increase Thursday — a move the Democratic governor announced at a labor rally with Vice President Joe Biden. Cuomo said he will work to pass legislation setting a $15 minimum for all industries — a promise that comes as more and more cities around the country...

Crowded. That’s how Ed Rensi remembers what life was like working at McDonald’s in 1966. There were about double the number of people working in the store — 70 or 80, as opposed to the 30 or 40 there today — because preparing the food just took a lot more doing. “When I first started at McDonald’s making 85 cents an hour, everything we made was by hand,” Rensi said — from cutting the shortcakes to stirring syrups into the milk for shakes. Over the years, though, ingredients started to arrive packaged and pre-mixed, ready to be heated up, bagged...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Members of the Los Angeles City Council Wednesday approved an ordinance that will raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour over the next five years. Officials explained the minimum wage will go from $9 per hour to $10.50 an hour beginning in 2016. The rate will then jump to $12 in 2017; $13.25 in 2018; $14.25 in 2019; and $15 by 2020. “We are already seeing the fruits of our labor as our own state and other cities nationwide begin exploring policies to increase their local minimum wage,” said L.A. City Council President Herb Wesson.

One of the first concepts taught in basic economics is the demand curve. As the price of something goes up, the demand for it goes down. And vice versa. One doesn’t even need an economics class to understand that a $50-million house will not have a bunch of buyers in a bidding war, compared to a much less expensive house. Or that a sale, lowering the price of something, is a good way to sell more and clear the inventory. So why is there such confusion about the minimum wage? A wage is simply the price of labor. Raise the...

SEATTLE -- Reaction continues to pour in over Seattle's new minimum wage law. Some business owners in Seattle say the increase to $11 an hour will force them to make drastic changes. Many in the local restaurant industry say the next few weeks and months will give them a better idea of the real impact under the new law. Some bosses have already been forced to make tough decisions to protect the bottom line. At Icon Grill in downtown Seattle, all employees will now only get one week of paid time off. Some employees who've worked at the restaurant for...

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Independent bookstores have faced tough times for quite a while. In San Francisco, neighborhood businesses have been passionately protected, so it's hard to believe that an initiative passed by voters to raise the minimum wage is driving a Mission District bookstore out of business. San Francisco's minimum wage is currently $11.05 an hour. By July of 2018, the minimum wage in San Francisco will be $15 an hour. That increase is forcing Borderlands Bookstore to write its last chapter now. When actor Scott Cox took a job at Borderlands Books he didn't do it for the...

Study: Minimum wage hikes don’t kill jobsBy Kevin McArdle July 21, 2014 5:14 AMA new study by the Center for Economic and Research Policy shows that job growth in states that increased their minimum wages this year is far more robust when compared to states that did not hike the minimum wage. Thirteen states increased their minimum wages in 2014, including New Jersey. According to the report, the average change in payrolls in states that implemented minimum wage hikes was 0.99 percent.  For states that didn’t see a minimum wage hike, it was 0.68 percent.However, the report said there is...

The White House may have to scrap its plans to aggressively promote a 40 percent national minimum wage hike now that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the move would likely cost the U.S. 500,000 jobs by the second half of 2016. [Snip] The White House didn´t answer questions about whether that trade-off is acceptable to President Obama, but Senate Democrats have pushed hard for legislation that would implement his goal of driving the minimum wage far above its current $7.25 level. But it quickly scheduled an afternoon conference call for reporters with Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason...

Hippie infestation. Seattle’s city council on Monday unanimously approved an increase in the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, making it the nation’s highest by far. The increase was formally proposed by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, and his spokesman said he intends to sign the ordinance on Tuesday. Apparently unaware that it doesn’t have the weather advantages that other places pricing themselves out of existence do (Los Angeles, anyone?), Seattle seems to be ready to set a record for how many businesses it can ruin. The earnest idiots who whip up this minimum wage frenzy always use big corporations...

**SNIP** Sawant said the 15 Now campaign continues to unite low-wage workers and raise awareness for the UW’s unequal wages. In a recent New York Times article, “Student Debt Grows Faster at Universities with Highest Paid Leaders,” the UW was cited as one of the “most unequal” of public universities. The report defines “unequal” as universities that not only have high executive pay, but also high levels of student debt, as well as low-wage and contingent faculty labor. “It’s important for workers to be in solidarity. UW gets state funding, but it’s run like a corporation,” Sawant said. “It’s shameful...

In testimony before a Senate committee on Thursday, Fed Chair Yellen said a minimum wage increase would likely have some negative effects on jobs, though it´s not clear how large. Still, boosting the federal minimum wage, which has remained at $7.25 per hour since mid-2009, would benefit some people, she added. In recent months, the federal minimum wage has been a hot-button issue. In February, President Barack Obama boosted the minimum pay for federal contractors hired in the future to $10.10 per hour. He´s also voiced his support for the federal level for all workers to rise to $10.10 from

Mayor Ed Murray’s minimum wage advisory committee is “deadlocked,” Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant said Friday, with the socialist officeholder pledging she will now work to “build a strong coalition in the streets.” Sawant and two other left-leaning City Council members sit on the panel, which is co-chaired by business leader Howard S. Wright III, CEO of Seattle Hospitality Group, and Service Employees Union leader David Rolf, the city’s most able labor leader. The statement by Sawant comes amids increasing indications that Seattle voters will have the final say on on the minimum wage issue. And, like Washington voters...

Even hiking the minimum wage to $15 an hour may not be enough to allow low-wage workers to afford rent in Seattle, according to a new study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The group says a full-time worker in the Seattle-Bellevue metro area needs to earn $21.60 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment. That’s the so-called housing wage that the group calculates. In Washington state, the housing wage is $18.65 per hour. The group estimated that the worker spends no more than 30 percent of his or her income on rent and utilities. For the price of...

SEATTLE — The leading proponent of a $15 an hour minimum wage in Seattle was challenged face-to-face today. Kshama Sawant engaged with small businesses owners worried about their survival. The impromptu meeting came after a City Council briefing on the implications of raising the minimum wage 63 percent, from $9.32 an hour to $15. “Despite all the rhetoric I'd like to understand the facts of what these other cities do and how they define the various terms that they use in the minimum wage ordinances,” said Council President Tim Burgess at the briefing. “My argument here is there's just not...

The first time I ever saw a Wal-Mart I was a grad student getting my MBA down in Tallahassee, FL. One opened up down the road from my apartment and I was immediately taken by the big bright stores with lots of stuff and what seemed to be pretty low prices. In class I learned the secrets to Wal-Mart’s success in its niche of “Always low prices”. It demanded efficiencies from its suppliers. It became fanatical about using information technology to optimize its sourcing and distribution channels. It paid its employees the community average or sometimes slightly more, but never...

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Raising the minimum wage could cost Illinois' cash-strapped universities millions of dollars in added wages for their student workforce. With lawmakers warning of tough budget times in the fiscal year beginning July 1, the proposal to bump the wage from its current level of $8.25 an hour to $10 or more an hour is raising red flags among university officials. At SIU, for example, President Glenn Poshard said an increase could cost his institution $3.2 million in additional wages at a time when the General Assembly may be considering further cuts in aid to high education. "We need an increase...