Workers and Poverty News
"Getting a discounted monthly bus pass in Palm Beach County requires proving you're legally in the United States. But a transportation advocate for the disadvantaged says the Palm Tran policy puts a significant burden on undocumented workers who are often living at the poverty level."
"About 200 Wake County employees – who handle tasks such as working with drug-addicted homeless people and children with mental illness – are finding their jobs in limbo because of a proposed restructuring of county services by the UNC Health Care System."
"Average hourly wages for all private-sector workers rose in March at a 2.1 percent annualized growth rate, well below the 3.3 percent growth rate when the Great Recession began in December 2007, according to a recent report from the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for low-wage workers."
"But business representatives warned that the higher minimum wage, overall, would hurt low-wage workers more than it would help, causing employers to compensate by cutting jobs or paring back hours for their lowest-paid workers."
"The ordinance would have forced city contractors to pay security guards, janitors and clerical and food-service workers at a rate significantly higher than the minimum wage, which is $7.50. It would have also forced businesses that receive more than $1 million in city funds to pay their security guards and janitors roughly $14 an hour."
"The state Labor Department showcased its jobs program for low-income youth Friday in Rockville Centre, where young workers were insulating a home. The youths were employees of Lake Success-based Green Earth Contractors, which has hired some workers through the state's NY Youth Works Program. The program aims to combat high unemployment rates among low-income young people."
"The pilot program, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation, offers preventive and primary care to low-wage, uninsured workers in the restaurant industry. Legal immigrants and other restaurant workers who don't meet the criteria or cannot afford coverage under the healthcare law are also eligible."
"Last year's fight over public-employee unions was waged when Ohio's unemployment rate was around 9%. Since then, though, it has dropped to 7.5%. One political debate will be whether the Republican Gov. John Kasich—the man at the center of the union fight—or the Democratic president, Mr. Obama, gets credit if the state's jobless rate continues to fall."
"Raising the minimum wage in New York State is a matter of economic survival for low-wage workers as well as some small-business owners on Long Island. An increase would bolster those who earn far less than the cost of basic necessities, economists said. It also could push tiny employers, grappling with the region's high costs and sluggish economy, over a financial precipice."
"Workers certainly could use the boost. If New York's minimum - it mirrors the federal minimum - had kept up with inflation over the past 40 years, it would total about $10.80. Without such protection, the $7.25 minimum has increased all of 10 cents in the last five years. Such stagnation has added to the tinder box that is income inequality - and rising poverty rates."
"Two measures that seek to address the plight of low-wage workers have opened an unusual rift between the mayor and the City Council, which is led by the mayor's close ally, Christine C. Quinn. Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire entrepreneur, has made economic development a priority in his third and final term, while Ms. Quinn, looking toward a mayoral bid next year, has tried to shore up her relationship with labor unions, leading to a clash of values that was on stark display Wednesday."
"More than 43,000 Guam residents receive food stamps from the federal government. Smaller groups of these residents are enrolled in other government programs that provide additional incentives for those who don't have jobs or have very-low-income jobs. G"
"Stark, D-Fremont, announced he's introducing the Women's Option to Raise Kids (WORK) Act, which would amend the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families welfare program to recognize the job of raising children age 3 or younger as work; low-income parents would be able to work, receive job training, search for work or raise their children until they are school-aged without fear of losing TANF support."
"Louisiana teachers will face tougher standards for keeping tenure, more charter schools will sprout around the state, and some low-income students will get private school tuition vouchers from state taxpayers under a sweeping package Gov. Bobby Jindal signed into law Wednesday with considerable fanfare."
"Varied opinions on the merits of raising the state's minimum wage were on full display Wednesday, with business groups and Senate Democrats hosting separate events focused on the hourly rate."
"The minimum wage currently earned by U.S. workers is $7.25 an hour and a bill has been introduced to raise the federal minimum wage to $9.80. The recent UGA study looked at how minimum wage increases can decrease poverty in America. According to the report, they don't."
"'And then you come home and you're kind of in that same boat,' said Burns, who has not received a pay raise since he was hired three years ago and whose salary falls below what private employers pay for comparable jobs. 'Your one paycheck away from needing food benefits yourself,' Burns said."
"This week, three months after her initial announcement, Ms. Quinn, a likely candidate for mayor next year, said that she had at last completed revising the measure, and that it would be 'the most impactful living-wage law in the United States.' But it now exempts even more employers, and by her office's estimate, just 400 to 500 low-wage workers a year will benefit."
"Three years into economic recovery, African Americans, Latinos, and Asians continue to lag whites in employment and job security, according to a study by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank in Washington. "
"They argue that roughly one in 10 hourly wage jobs in Texas pay at or below minimum wage, ranking the Lone Star State worst in the nation. In addition, McNichol and Johnson say Texas has the 11th-highest poverty rate in the United States. 'Such high levels of poverty and low-wage employment make the Texas economy a dubious model for the nation,' they add."
"The long battle over a measure that would raise the wages of workers whose companies receive subsidies from New York City took a surprising turn on Wednesday, when a previously undisclosed loophole was scrapped, prompting a major business group to withdraw its support for the measure."
"In Congress and several states, some lawmakers want to increase the legally mandated minimum wage. They think employers should have to pay more for labor. They say it should be illegal to hire people who are willing to work cheap."
"All across America, unemployment insurance is changing, and in most cases, it's becoming more stingy. More than a dozen states this month will lose eligibility for the second of two federal unemployment programs, subtracting as many as 20 weeks of benefits from the amount previously available to the long-term jobless. "
"That's part of the idea behind Lee's San Francisco Summer Jobs+ program, an initiative to get 5,000 summer jobs and paid internships for young people ages 14 to 24, with a focus on low-income and disadvantaged youth."
'''It's always good to surface an issue that captures voters' enthusiasm and distinguishes the bad guys and the good guys,' said Jen Kern, minimum wage campaign coordinator at the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for low-wage workers."
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