Workers and Poverty News
"Let’s give Mitt Romney the benefit of the doubt: He didn’t really mean it when he said, 'I’m not concerned about the very poor.' Or, let’s just say he cares about them no less than he cares about the rest of us."
"His recent remarks have suggested callousness. But amid the kerfuffle, he offered one good idea: specifically, he told the Associated Press on Wednesday that he backs indexing the federal minimum wage to inflation, just as he did when running for governor of Massachusetts a decade ago."
"Over one million New Yorkers who barely survive now on minimum wage, could soon catch a breather. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Assembly Labor Committee Chairman Keith Wright, both Democrats, introduced legislation Monday to raise the minimum wage in New York State to $8.50 next in January."
"As a result, thousands of pregnant women are pushed out of jobs that they are perfectly capable of performing -- either put on unpaid leave or simply fired -- when they request an accommodation to help maintain a healthy pregnancy. Many are single mothers or a family's primary breadwinner. They are disproportionately low-income women, often in physically demanding jobs with little flexibility."
"As state Assembly Democrats rolled out a bill to boost the state’s minimum wage yesterday, a new study revealed that such a hike could lead to double-digit job losses among the hardest-to-employ New Yorkers."
"The group Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United wants consumers to consider how the people making their food are being treated with the help of a 52-page manual released Tuesday called ROC National 2012 Diners' Guide: A Consumer Guide on the Working Conditions of American Restaurants."
"House Republicans have hit upon a noxious scheme to help pay for an extension of the payroll tax cut: a tax increase on millions of poor working families."
"Under the deal, 40% of those hired must come from low-income neighborhoods, and 10% must be 'disadvantaged' -- meaning they fit at least two of nine criteria, including homelessness, single parenthood and veteran status."
"It was a blue-collar speech, aimed largely at the swing voters Obama most needs to woo - middle- and low-income workers still struggling in the recession's wake. His challenge was to convince them that, on economic policy, he is on their side."
"Van Overbeeke's move two years ago from haute cuisine to homeless shelter was a key step in Pine Street Inn's efforts to develop a corporate catering business to increase revenues to support its food service job-training program."
"On Tuesday, Wuest, other policy leaders and education and youth advocates will gather at a forum at the Chicago Urban League to drum up support for the Pathways Back to Work Act, federal legislation that would provide $5 billion in training and employment programs for youth and unemployed and low-income adults."
"The report was triggered, in part, by concerns from ROC-Michigan, which represents about 800 low-wage food service workers. Many make minimum wage or less, Longiaru said: 'One of the ironies of working as a low-wage employee of the food service industry is not having access to healthy, safe food.'"
"That check is the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a complicated name for tax relief for working families. Congress enacted a federal EITC in 1975, and Illinois enacted a state version in 2000. On Jan. 10 I signed a bill to put more money in the pockets of working families by doubling Illinois' EITC from 5 percent of the federal credit to 10 percent, saving low-income workers an extra $105 million a year."
''Whether Congress funds us or doesn't fund us, we still have a homeless vet on the street that has to be cared for; we can't ignore the problem,'' Mr. Smith said. ''I'm a Republican, and I'm not generally in favor of a lot of federal spending, but I believe that if there's a homeless vet on the street that the federal government shares some of that responsibility and some of that burden. Simply because they reduce the budget doesn't mean the cost goes away.''
"The study, based on interviews with nonunion workers and released on Monday, largely found poverty wages and highly unstable schedules for the city's retail employees, with less than a fifth having a set schedule each work week. The study said many workers had a hard time planning for, say, child care or classes because more than half learned their schedules a week or less before a work week would begin."
"After months of heated debate over whether New York City should mandate a so-called living wage for workers in city-subsidized projects, the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, unveiled a proposal on Friday that would raise wages for some workers in such projects."
"'There is a strong public interest in distributing unpaid wages restitution to alleged employee victims as promptly as possible,' state lawyers said in court papers. 'The victims are generally unskilled, low-wage, non-English speakers who are at high risk of being unemployed and without resources and especially vulnerable to financial hardship.'"
“'The reports on balance suggest ongoing improvement in economic conditions in recent months,' the Fed said in the report, which comes out two weeks before each meeting on monetary policy. 'The combination of limited permanent hiring in most sectors and numerous active job seekers has continued to keep a lid on general wage increases.'”
"Deborah Howlett, president of New Jersey Policy Perspective, a liberal think tank, said raising the minimum wage would help thousands of low-wage workers and boost the state's sluggish economy."
"They include: workers who are paid below the minimum wage; workers who aren't paid the overtime they are owed; workers who aren't paid at all or are only paid part of what they are owed; and workers who don't receive their final paycheck after they depart from a job.
In the state and across the nation, wage theft is more prevalent in low-wage industries such as retailing and restaurants, according to the Justice Center."
"Critics suggest the programs may not even be in the best interest of workers if the resulting jobs pay low wages or simply disappear after a few years, leaving employees with narrow skills that do not help them land new positions. "
"Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said he hopes to introduce the legislation by Jan. 31. He estimated more than 1.2 million people, or 14 percent of the workforce across New York, would be affected by boosting the state's minimum wage above the federal rate of $7.25 per hour."
"In 2008, then-President-elect Barack Obama made an ambitious pledge as part of his agenda to fight poverty, one he claimed would help 'make work pay for all Americans' in an era of widening economic inequality: By the end of 2011, he would raise the federal minimum wage to $9.50 an hour and index it to inflation, 'to make sure that full-time workers can earn a living wage,' as his transition team's website put it."
"Unemployment for new graduates is around 8.9 percent; the rate for workers with only a high school diploma is nearly three times as high, at 22.9 percent."
"Raising the retirement age for a 41-year-old, poverty-level worker would reduce lifetime benefits by $26,000. But the lower tax burden would offset 40% of the benefit loss. For a very high-income worker (16 times the poverty level), the lower tax burden would offset 90% of the benefit loss."
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