Free Republic

Despite the federal government's growing economic dominance, individual states still exercise substantial freedom in pursuing their own economic fortune -- or misfortune. As a result, the states provide a laboratory for testing various policies. In this election year, the experience of the states gives us some ability to look at the economic policies of the two presidential candidates in action... Ranking states by domestic migration, per-capita income growth and employment growth, ALEC found that from 1996 through 2006, Texas, Florida and Arizona were the three most successful states. Illinois, Ohio and Michigan were the three least successful.The rewards for success...

I wonder if there is a group of homeless who would work for $3,000? Probably. Thus, if there was no mnimum wage, you wouldn't see goats working for what truly destitue people need, money...

Teenage workers are disappearing from the U.S. workforce. Something appears to have happened to drive them out of the workforce in large numbers. Phil Miller and Doc Palmer say that the recent mandated hikes in the minimum wage very likely has something to do with the teenagers getting disappeared, but no one in the media is willing to finger them as a promising culprit behind the workplace disappearances. Could they be right? To find out, we went straight to the source: the Bureau of Labor Statistics. What we did was to take the BLS' report on the Characteristics of Minimum...

The federal minimum wage rose by 70 cents yesterday to $6.55 per hour, and left-wing advocates are celebrating the increase as a boon for the so-called working poor. Not to be party poopers, but the reality is that most poor people in the U.S. already earn more than the minimum wage, and most workers who do earn the minimum wage aren't poor. The wage hike is the second of three annual increases mandated by a 2007 law. Next year the federal wage floor will rise to $7.25. This year's increase will touch some 1.5 million workers, in a workforce numbering...

Washington, D.C (AHN) -- Minimum wage in the United States will see the second of three planned increases. Thursday, the federal minimum wage for workers will increase $0.70 cents to $6.55 per hour, as mandated by the Fair Minimum Wage Act passed by Congress. The third increase is slated for July 2009, when the minimum wage will jump to $7.25 an hour.According to the Labor Department, a half a million Americans currently work for minimum wage. Most of these workers are young, teens and in their early twenties.The increase approved in 2007 is the first in a decade. In 1997...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is planning to cut the pay of about 200,000 state workers to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour until a budget is signed, according to a draft of the governor's order obtained by The Times. Administration officials said Schwarzenegger is expected to sign the order early next week as part of an effort to avert a cash crisis. The controversial move, likely to be challenged in court by public-employee unions, would save the state about $1 billion a month, the officials said. Workers would be repaid their lost earnings once a budget was in place....

If anyone ever tries to tell you that the economy is driven by consumer spending, I have one piece of advice–RUN! This one fallacy alone has arguably caused more damage to our nation than any other, and a person who believes it is either deceived, or is using it to be deceptive, or both. I walked out of an investing seminar recently because the speaker used this fallacy–that consumer spending is the basis of the economy–as a foundational argument for his thesis. His thesis was that America is headed toward a serious economic downturn based on future reduction of consumer...

Michigan's May unemployment rate of 8.5% is the highest in the country, and it's not even close: The state with the next highest jobless rate is Rhode Island at 7.2%, more than a full percentage point below Michigan. And compared to South Dakota, the state with the lowest rate of 2.9%, Michigan's rate is a whopping 5.6% higher. And it's about to get even higher this summer. Reason? The minimum wage for adults will increase to $7.40 per hour in a week, "a move that has Michigan businesses shuddering," according to The Flint Journal. And those younger than 18 get...

Economy: When Democrats in Congress finagled a jump in the minimum wage last year, they crowed about their victory. Now Americans are finding out what it cost as the unemployment rate shoots up.Wall Street was stunned when the U.S. jobless rate jumped to 5.5% in May from 5% in April. Had things gotten so desperate so suddenly? Or was something else at work? As it turns out, it seems the problem was that hundreds of thousands of youths poured onto the job market at the same time, thanks to the end of the school year. But many, if not most,...

What the Media Didn’t Tell You About Friday’s Unemployment Spike By Jerry Bowyer It wasn’t Bush, it wasn’t greedy corporations, or free trade, or history’s most over-predicted recession. It was not the oil companies, income inequality, or the excesses of cowboy capitalism. None of these things caused the unemployment rate to jump a half a percentage point in one month. Ask yourself a few questions: Why did unemployment surge at a time when unemployment compensation claims are historically low? More to the point, how could unemployment spike this much without a coinciding spike in corporate lay-offs? The answer to all...

Raising the minimum wage is nothing more than political snake oil. It makes some politicians look good, but hurts business, raises prices, reduces the number of minimum wage jobs and does nothing to improve those who slick politicians are pretending to help. Proponents of the Minimum wage/snake oil scam claim that raising the minimum wage helps poor families. Dab that tear, then let's look beyond the scam. The Heritage Foundation reports that 53% of minimum wage employees are teenagers or young adults under the age of 23. The other 47% have an average family income of $38,100 per year.

One in five New Jerseyans do not have enough money to afford the barest essentials to live in the state, according to a report issued today by the Legal Services of New Jersey Poverty Research Institute. When it comes to determining who is poor or financially struggling, anti-poverty activists said, the federal poverty level standard is useless. And the minimum wage of $7.15 an hour will not provide for self-sufficiency anywhere in the state. Read on...

A lawsuit filed by seven hotels seeking to avoid paying a higher minimum wage has cost roughly 2,000 workers a combined $4.7 million in lost income, according to a report to be released today by a pro-union nonprofit group. The Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, which last year persuaded the City Council to pass a $10.64-per-hour minimum wage at hotels near Los Angeles International Airport, said the ongoing legal fight has delayed implementation of the law -- denying each hotel employee anywhere from $350 to $4,400 since the measure was approved in January 2007.

To judge from its state election campaigns, Germany's governing parties are flirting with recklessness. THE blows were struck in Bavaria but the impact was felt as far away as Hesse. On December 20th a young Greek and his Turkish companion answered a pensioner who told them to stop smoking on the Munich underground by beating him up. “We have too many young foreign criminals,” responded Roland Koch (above, with Angela Merkel). Mr Koch is fighting to be re-elected for a third term as Hesse's premier. Foreign miscreants, he declared, should be deported; young ones should be taught a lesson with...

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has accused foreign textile companies, mostly Taiwanese, of "enslaving" workers and leaving the country instead of paying higher wages. Ortega said several industries closed in free zones following the government's recent decision to increase the minimum wage by 18 percent. "There is talk that the companies are going to leave the free zones, that people are going to be left unemployed," the leftist Ortega said in a speech late on Wednesday. "When they find that they have to pay more, it is no longer worthwhile and they leave," he said. The president said the owners of...

(McClellanville) -- Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards says the 70 cents per hour increase in the minimum wage is not enough. The former North Carolina senator told reporters in McClellanville Wednesday he wants other presidential candidates to join him in calling for an increase in the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour by 2012. Tuesday's increase boosted the minimum wage to $5.85 per hour. Edwards made a similar call Monday night in the Democratic presidential debate in Charleston. He says all he heard was bragging about Congressional action.

he day the first minimum wage increase in 10 years was enacted, Democrats and Big Labor made it clear they would ask for another hike soon. On Tuesday, a 70 cent increase to the federal minimum wage went into effect. The minimum wage increase, passed by the Democrat-controlled Congress in May, will increase 70 cents twice more over the next two years, until it reaches $7.25 in 2009. To celebrate, labor activists held a rally on Capitol Hill to thank congressional Democrats for delivering the pay raise—and demanded more. “Even when we get to $7.25, it’s not enough. We have...

WASHINGTON - Fast-food waitress Fawn Townsend of Raleigh, N.C., knows exactly what she is going to do if her salary goes up with Tuesday's increase in the federal minimum wage: start saving for a car so she can find a second job to make ends meet. "My goal personally is to get a vehicle so I can independently go back and forth to work and maybe pick up extra work so I can have that extra income, because minimum wage is not cutting it," said Townsend, who is 24 and single. "Being a single person, you can't pay all your...

The immigration debate in Congress is dead for now, but in all the heated discussion, many flaws in the legislation were never discussed. The immigration reform debate completely ignored one big magnet for illegal entry into the United States: minimum-wage laws. And as the minimum wage increases that were recently passed this year go into effect, this problem will get worse. Even employers willing to illegally pay subminimum wages are reluctant to hire U.S. citizens or legal residents, because even workers who’ve knowingly agreed to the low pay have a legal right to sue. And, by law, you can sue...

SPRINGFIELD - Illinois' minimum wage shoots up to $7.50 an hour today, a move heralded as helping working men and women by the Democrats who pushed it, but which ironically may have cost a suburban company two state contracts and eliminated dozens of downstate jobs. Hoffman Estates-based Rely Services has a data-entry center in downstate Carlinville, which for years held state contracts to manually input tax and vehicle data. But in bidding to keep those contracts, the company was undercut, in part, its officials say, because out-of-state firms can pay their employees a lower minimum wage. As a result, the...

A recent study from Wharton University found teen employment has hit historic lows in the last three years, and, according to the report, "experts say we should be worried." Researchers found that in the summer of 2006, 37% of teens nationwide worked - nearly 11% fewer than were working in 1989, the peak of a nationwide economic boom. One labor professor said, "If adult employment fell by the same rate teen employment has in the last 10 years, that would be the greatest job loss in American history since the Depression." The report said that teens want to work, but...

Old debates are certain to spark new life after legislation was introduced Thursday to increase New York state’s minimum wage 16 percent by 2010. Three years ago, a battle raged over the positive and adverse effects of a minimum wage increase on the state’s economy. The raise was approved and the minimum hourly wage was incrementally increased from $5.15 to $7.15. Now, just six months after the final portion of the increase was tacked on, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Labor Committee Chair Susan John have suggested upping the wage to $8.25 over the next three years. ‘‘The Assembly strongly...

Hank Gilbert was not impressed with the 80th meeting of the Texas Legislature. Gilbert, a former candidate for agriculture commissioner and Democratic anti-toll road lobbyist, offered his opinions and reported on his efforts, specifically on bills concerning the toll roads, at the Texas Democratic Women of Gregg County's monthly meeting Thursday. "The 80th session probably had some high points," he said of the Democrats' progress. "But I didn't see them; except the raising of the minimum wage to $7.25, which won't go into effect for another two years." Gilbert spoke in detail about Texas House Bill 1892, a piece of...

If you have any doubts government-mandated minimum-wage laws kill jobs for the poor rather than lift them out of poverty, just take a look at what is happening right now in American Samoa. The latest minimum-wage law passed by Congress calls specifically for hikes in the U.S. territory – 50 cents a year annually until the continental rate of $7.25 is reached. This Washington-knows-best, one-size-fits-all approach is killing jobs in Samoa already – just days after it was signed into law by President Bush last Friday. StarKist had planned to expand its tuna production next month by hiring some 200-300...

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama voted NO on the Iraq Funding bill last Thursday. We know this because every media outlet has shouted these headlines.  Google lists 556 news stories to this effect.However, the $2.10 minimum wage increase was hitched to the Iraq funding bill, and $6.4 Billion Hurricane Katrina aid was piggybacked to the Iraq funding bill. Therefore, Clinton and Obama voted NO to the minimum wage increase and NO to the $6.4Billion Katrina aid package.This would normally leave a mark with the candidates' liberal party members. But you won't read about the Clinton and Obama "No" votes on...

With little fanfare, Congress yesterday approved the first increase in the federal minimum wage in nearly a decade, voting to boost wages for America's lowest-paid workers from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour over the next two years. The bill, which a spokesman for President Bush said he would sign, would end the longest stretch without an increase in the federal minimum wage since it was established in 1938. It would also mark a victory for congressional Democrats, becoming the first item to be enacted from an eight-point agenda that House leaders vowed to pursue during their first 100 hours in...

WASHINGTON, May 24 — Congress handed a major victory to low-income workers on Thursday night by approving the first increase in the federal minimum wage rate in a decade. By a vote of 348 to 73, the House approved the measure as part of a deal on Iraq spending. Less than two hours later, the wage increase was approved in the Senate, where it was combined with a bill providing more money for the Iraq war. That vote was 80 to 14. The measure would raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour from $5.15 in three stages over two...

WASHINGTON: After a decade-long wait, America's lowest-paid workers saw Congress poised Thursday to increase the federal minimum wage by $2.10 (€1.56).For years, the idea of increasing the minimum wage from $5.15 (€3.83) an hour has been stalled by partisan bickering between Republicans and Democrats. That almost became the fate of this year's proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25 (€5.39) over two years. Democratic leaders attached the provision to the $120 billion (€89.23 billion) Iraq war spending bill, which was vetoed by the White House on May 1 because Democrats insisted on a pullout date for American troops....

Thirty years ago, I taught at a little Christian school in California. It was a wonderful job. The students were talented, energetic and hard-working, and my fellow faculty members were like brothers and sisters. But we had one constant trouble: Despite the best efforts of teachers and administration, we simply could not prevent kids from being incredibly cruel to those unfortunate kids who didn't fit in with the "popular" crowd. What puzzled us was that the most victimized students were often some of the nicest kids in the school: sweet, cooperative, helpful and sensitive - kids who did nothing to...

Living Wage vs. Minimum Wage (November 1, 2006): “With all of the debate recently over raising the minimum wage, more needs to be said about requiring employers to pay a ‘living wage.’ … A living wage is considered to be a rate of pay for a 40-hour week that allows the wage earner to afford ‘housing, food, utilities, transport, health care and a certain amount of recreation.’"

<p>ALERT: You've probably heard that last week, the U.S. Senate passed a "minimum wage" bill. It was all over the news.</p> <p>But did you hear that they also tried to pass AMNESTY for illegal aliens???</p> <p>You read that right: when the bill was about to be passed, it included something called "Amendment 187." As John Bender at the EtherZone.com blog put it, "There was no big announcement or press coverage of this amendment passing because Amendment 187 is essentially McCain-Kennedy-Bush amnesty that most of the country is against. The idea was to sneak this past the American people."</p>

Before Amendment 42 passed in November, some restaurateurs weren't concerned about a minimum wage increase, but as it turns out, the law is impacting restaurant budgets significantly. "It's a huge change," said Barb Richard, marketing manager for the Dillon Dam Brewery. "We've had to tighten our belt everywhere, from ads to raises, and cut costs dramatically. (But) there's no way to absorb it completely." Eric Mamula, owner of Downstairs at Eric's in Breckenridge, said he's paying his waitstaff $75,000 to $80,000 more annually because of the amendment, which calls for waitstaff to earn a minimum of $3.83 an hour, up...

So you want to grow the economy? Just force employers to pay employees more. That way they’ll spend more money, and voila! Economic growth! That was CNN business reporter Ali Velshi’s economic analysis on the February 2 edition of “American Morning.” “The increase is tied to $8.3 billion in tax cuts, largely because a lot of small businesses complained,” Velshi noted of the Senate vote the night before to boost the minimum wage. The legislation faces tougher sledding in the House, where Democratic leaders want to remove the tax cuts before sending it to the president. “Now, folks, agree or...

Democrats promised last year to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time in a decade if voters gave them control of Congress, but now they're holding it up in a game of chicken between the party's liberal purists and pragmatists. The Senate voted 94-3 Thursday to increase the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, from $5.15. The House of Representatives approved such a raise weeks earlier. The sticking point between the two versions is $8.3 billion in Republican-backed tax breaks for small businesses in the Senate version. House liberals argue that now that they're in charge they shouldn't...

The Senate voted overwhelmingly yesterday to increase the federal minimum wage for the first time in nearly a decade, but added small-business tax breaks that are unacceptable to House leaders, preventing Democrats from claiming a quick victory on one of their top legislative priorities. The Senate voted 94 to 3 in favor of the measure, which would raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour from $5.15 over two years. To attract Republican support, Senate leaders agreed to extend tax credits and expand deductions for businesses that would be hit hardest by the minimum-wage increase. Those tax breaks, worth $8.3...

After weeks of debate and parliamentary wrangling, the Senate passed a long-awaited $2.10 increase in the minimum wage by an overwhelming margin of 94-3 — the first such hike in a decade, though it will be spread over two years. Raising the minimum wage, usually a rallying cry for more progressive or liberal Democrats, became an unlikely but effective campaign issue in the 2006 midterm elections that, along with voter frustration over the war in Iraq and perceived corruption on Capitol Hill, brought them back in control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 12 years. A...

A Democratic campaign promise to boost the federal minimum wage for the first time in a decade moved closer to completion on Tuesday when U.S. Senate Republicans lifted a roadblock against it. Full Senate approval is now possible because Democrats agreed to Republican demands to include tax cuts for small businesses to help cover the cost of raising the minimum wage over two years to $7.25 per hour from $5.15 per hour. On an 87-10 vote, the Democratic-led Senate agreed to end more than a week of debate and hold a vote in coming days on the bill to increase...

If Moses, after spending 40 days and nights with the Almighty, had come down from Mount Sinai today bearing two tablets with the Ten Commandments, he would have been hard pressed to find a publisher. The pornographic movie business rakes in yearly more than Hollywood ($12 billion vs. $10 billion). "Zoo," not a pornographic movie, according to director Robinson Devor, pushes the envelope of today's latest norms by breaking down "the last taboo on the boundary of something comprehensible." It's sex between men and animals. "Spring Awakening" is Broadway's latest hit musical, hailed by reviewers as "tastefully erotic" and "a...

Well, PA's new mininum wage went into effect at the beginning of the year, and already prices for the consumer at most restraunts and bars have gone up.... $3.99 2 slices and a drink ? no more try 4.50. $6.50 lunch SPecial.. no more 6.75.... Entry level places have increased their prices across the board in the last few weeks as far as I can tell. Thanks Fast Eddie...

Farm labor demands minimum wage, too Saturday, January 27, 2007 Alan Johnson THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Angry that farmworkers, many of them Latinos, are excluded from Ohio’s new minimum-wage increase, a labor group yesterday threatened to launch a constitutional legal challenge. Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland will be in its corner. Spokesman Keith Dailey said Strickland wants to revisit the minimum-wage issue. Before he took office, Strickland urged Gov. Bob Taft not to sign the law implementing the constitutional amendment passed in November because of what Strickland considers unfair exclusions. "He felt they undermined the will of people who passed the mini-...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In the first 100 hours of the 110th Congress, the House passed a minimum wage bill that raises the federal minimum from $5.15 to $7.25 an hour and the Senate may follow suit this week, to the dismay of some small business owners. As a result of the new law, experts say that many small firms could be forced to raise prices, cut jobs or slash the hours of the low-wage workers. Video More video The House signs off on boosting the minimum wage by $2.10 over two years. CNN's Andrea Koppel reports (January 11) Play...

The recent passage of a federal minimum wage act is expected to have little, if any, impact on San Diego employers. But rumored amendments in the Senate may prove otherwise. The House of Representatives passed HR 2, also known as the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, on Jan. 10. The act raises the minimum dollar amount an employee anywhere in the country may receive from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour within two years. Tina Fryar, an employment law attorney at the San Diego office of Littler Mendelson, said there’s no cause for any immediate concern locally because...

The Senate last night overwhelmingly passed an ethics bill after breaking a day-long stalemate over a Republican proposal on earmarks that had threatened to kill the legislation.     The vote was 96-2, with the two "no" votes coming from Republican Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Orrin G. Hatch of Utah.     "It's the most significant legislation on ethics and lobbying reform ever passed in the history of the country, and it was hard to get there," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said as he left the Senate chamber after last night's vote. "It was a long day."     The impasse had centered...

Among social scientists, it's no secret that the minimum wage is a weak weapon against poverty. Modest numbers of workers are affected; many are teenagers, often from middle-class homes; and many of the poor don't work. And a higher minimum wage may destroy some jobs. No matter. Democrats plunged ahead because raising the minimum wage is symbolically powerful. It says that you care about "economic justice."

"House Democrats say a just-passed minimum-wage bill will be changed to cover all U.S. territories – including American Samoa – " "Spokesmen for Pelosi and Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, the author of the minimum-wage bill, said it excluded American Samoa at the request of nonvoting Delegate Eni Faleomavaega, a Democrat who represents the Pacific island territories in the House. Raising the federal minimum wage would devastate the local tuna industry, Faleomavaega said in a statement last week, adding that American Samoa's economy is “more than 80 percent” dependent on Chicken of the Sea and StarKist."

In the first hundred hours of the just-started session of Congress, the new leadership promises to raise the minimum wage. The Democrats won't be opposed by many Republicans. Raising the minimum wage is definitely popular. Voters in six states approved higher minimums last Election Day. State politicians in both parties are practically drooling with eagerness to "help" lower-income workers. We all want the poor to make more money. So if government can raise wages by decree, why are the popular proposals so stingy? Let's really do something for the poor. Let's raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour. Even...

<p>Congress: Speaker Nancy Pelosi's first 100 hours were meant as a tour de force of populist legislation. But in no time Democrats' divisions, hypocrisy and abuse of power have been exposed.</p> <p>Turns out that the Democrats' much-touted "100 hours," in which they promised to push through six major bills, is not real time at all. Time spent on other legislative business doesn't count. So while half those hours had actually passed by week's end, Pelosi's Web site recorded fewer than 20 hours having expired.</p>

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Fending off charges of favoritism, House Democrats say a just-passed minimum wage bill will be changed to cover all U.S. territories — including American Samoa — before it reaches President Bush's desk. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters she has instructed the House Education and Labor Committee to help get the bill changed to "make sure that all of the territories have to comply with the U.S. law on minimum wage." Her remark Friday followed accusations from Republicans a day earlier that American Samoa, which is not now covered by the $5.15 an hour federal minimum...

The U.S. economy may be at that point now. Employees are enjoying substantial raises. Even as productivity growth has slowed, workers' wages have risen rapidly. Over the past 12 months, average hourly wages have increased by 4.1 percent. Earnings have not risen this quickly since February 2001, right before the collapse of the tech bubble.[6] The same also holds true after taking account of inflation. Inflation-adjusted wages have risen 2.8 percent over the past year, the fastest rate since August 1998.[7] Companies are giving their employees the raises that their increased productivity has earned them, and in response, incomes are...

So, the House of Representatives has passed its Federal Minimum Wage Act as one of its “first 100 hours priorities,” per the new Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. But it turns out that the “raise” for all Americans contains two exemptions. One is for the Northern Mariana Islands and one for American Samoa. The Mariana Islands have a special low minimum wage. They have a Republican “representative” to Congress, who is not a “Congressman.” Their interests have, until recently, had the disgraced Jack Abramoff as their spokesman and operative. American Samoa has a better deal. They are totally exempt from the minimum...