The Minimum Wage: Time to Start Working on the Next Increase
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This is a cross-post from Jared Bernstein’s blog, On the Economy. Bernstein is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) and, from 2009 to 2011, was the chief economist and economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.
I’ve always thought the national minimum wage is a lot more important than most people tend to think. By definition, it sets a floor on the low end of the job market, though to their credit, many states now set their minimums above the federal level of $7.25 (Washington State clocks in at a cool $9.04). So it’s a floor, not a ceiling.
Lots of low-wage workers and their families depend on it, and its long slide, as shown in the accompanying chart, especially over the Reagan years, contributed to wage losses and working poverty for many who toil to this day in low-end services.
Of course, when someone raises the idea of a raise, you hear a huge outcry from some in the business lobby. Their generic argument is that the increase will lead to job losses among those low-wage workers affected by the higher wage level. Such workers, they say, will now be “priced out of the labor market.”
Yet, you hear the opposite from groups that represent low-wage workers’ interests, groups like the National Employment Law Project, or NELP (proud disclosure: I’m on their board). Read the rest of this entry »
Better Access to WARN Act Information Needed for Workers, Communities
Last year, more than 2.8 million workers were victims of mass layoffs or plant closings that should have fallen under the 1988 WARN Act, which requires employers to give workers and communities advance notice before shutting down. But, as a new AFL-CIO report reveals, the plant closing law “has proven severely flawed.”
Numerous reports have concluded that most layoffs are not subject to WARN Act requirements; few employers act in compliance with the law; and penalties for noncompliance are so lax that they do not act as deterrents.
The AFL-CIO report, “The Public Availability of WARN Notices: Lack of Accessibility and Disclosure Calls for Reform,” examines the difficulty in obtaining WARN notice information that can be vital in planning for the economic and jobs impact of a mass layoff or plant closure.
