By Kacen Bayless
Kansas City Star, May 1, 2024. Also Yahoo News and AOL News.

Organizers of a campaign to raise Missouri’s minimum wage and guarantee sick leave for workers dropped off signatures on Wednesday to force a statewide vote on the measure. ...

Joseph Chevalier, the owner of Yellow Dog Bookshop in Columbia, said in a statement on Wednesday that businesses should be able to plan ahead for the wage increases and paid sick time. “The minimum wage needs to be raised,” he said. “Small businesses like mine depend on local customers with money...

By Jack Suntrup
St. Louis Post Dispatch, May 1, 2024

JEFFERSON CITY — Organizers for the campaign seeking a higher minimum wage and guaranteed paid sick time off submitted signatures Wednesday to put the question to voters later this year. Representatives for the campaign, Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages, said canvassers turned in more than 200,000 signatures ...

At the same time, the group Missouri Business for a Healthy Economy, which said it includes more than 400 members, released a series of statements from business owners supportive of the effort.

“The minimum wage...

Connections with Evan Dawson
WXXI (NPR), Rochester, March 6, 2024

A new proposed bill in the New York State Legislature calls for a statewide minimum wage. If passed, the Upstate Parity and Minimum Wage Protection Act would establish a statewide minimum wage floor of $17 per hour by the year 2026.

Guests include Leon Miller-Out, owner of Singlebrook Technology in Ithaca ...

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Op-Ed By Tom Reed and Jorge Valdez, co-owners of Iguana Imports in Long Beach and by Gary Hytrek, professor of geography at California State University, Long Beach.
Signal Tribune, Feb 27, 2024

Long Beach’s tourism and hospitality industries came roaring back in 2023, delivering a nearly $1.8 billion economic impact citywide. While this was great news for those at the top, our city’s struggling small businesses and working families have been shut out of the windfall ... We have a chance to fix that. On March 5, Long Beach voters will have the opportunity to...

By Juan Lasso
LI Herald, Jan 26, 2024

The minimum hourly wage on Long Island has climbed from $15 to $16 starting this year thanks to a mandate, brokered by lawmakers in Albany and Gov. Kath Hochul in last year’s budget deal. ...

Phil Andrews, President of the Long Island African American Chamber of Commerce, argues the increase, all things considered, signifies good news for employers. He challenged the conventional business wisdom that higher wages would prompt owners to make job cuts and layoffs to absorb higher labor costs. 

“For businesses, when you pay your...

By John Reitmeyer
NJ Spotlight News, Jan 16, 2024

The minimum hourly wage is now over $15 for the first time in New Jersey, thanks to a $1 increase that took effect on Jan. 1, immediately lifting take-home pay for an estimated 350,000 hourly workers. ...

New Jersey was one of 22 states across the nation to see a minimum wage increase take effect on Jan. 1, according to Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, a national group that tracks and advocates for such increases.

Among the places that have gone well beyond the $15...

By Victor Ocasio
Newsday, Jan 8, 2024

As local businesses adjust to Long Island’s new $16 minimum wage, some employers said they are concerned about the impact increased labor costs are having on their ability to compete in an already high-priced business environment. ...

Some business groups, however, said the increases represent an opportunity to boost consumer spending at small businesses on the Island.

Luis Vazquez, president of the Long Island Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said the increase to $16 is “a positive beginning to bridging the wage disparities that exist, and the higher wage would mean...

By Tashi McQueen
Afro News, Jan 7, 2024

Though many new laws from the 2023 session of the Maryland General Assembly took effect in July and October, some will not apply until 2024. Several new laws took effect on Jan. 1. ...

When it comes to earnings on the job, the Fair Wage Act of 2023 (SB555/HB549), a law that requires all Maryland employers to increase the minimum wage to $15, went into effect on Jan. 1. The minimum wage in Maryland was $13.25 for employers with 15 employees or more and $12.80 for employers...

By Robert Higgs
Cleveland Plain Dealer, Jan 4, 2024. Syndicated by Tribune Content Agency News Service.

Higher minimum wages that kicked into effect with the start of 2024 will boost minimum hourly pay in some states as high as $16, benefiting as many as 10 million workers. ... The federal minimum wage, meanwhile, remains at $7.25 an hour, unchanged since 2009. Twenty states, mostly in the South and Midwest, also have that baseline rate as their state minimum wage.

“While the federal minimum wage falls further and further behind the cost of living at...

By Kirstin Garriss, CMG Washington News Bureau
Cox Media Group, January 04, 2024. Ran nationally in multiple Cox TV and radio stations.

Starting this month, millions of workers will get a bump in their paychecks. That’s because more than 20 states are boosting minimum wages. ...

But some entrepreneurs believe higher pay is an investment.

“From my perspective, this is a cost that actually gets you something in terms of recruiting, in terms of retention, in terms of the quality of the work that you put out,” said Aaron Seyedian, owner of Well-Paid Maids. ...

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By Brian Beach
Nebraska Public Media, Jan. 2, 2024

On Monday, Nebraska’s minimum wage increased to $12 an hour, making it the 18th highest state minimum wage in the country and one of 25 states increasing its minimum wage this year. In 2022, Nebraska voters passed an initiative raising the minimum wage from $9 an hour up to $15 an hour by 2026, increasing by $1.50 each year. After that, the wage will be adjusted in accordance with cost of living increases.

Dave Titterington has owned the Wild Bird Habitat Store, with locations in Lincoln...

By Jacob Owens
Delaware Business Times, January 2, 2024

Delaware continued its march toward an eventual $15 minimum wage with an increase of $1.50 an hour on Monday. ...

The bill spurred a contentious debate ... But others, including business owners, said the increase will help attract workers to Delaware with the promise of higher wages, therefore decreasing turnover and allowing Delaware to remain competitive with surrounding states.

Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, an advocacy group, pushed for the hike and organized some local small business owners to push its message here. They included...

By Chris McKenna
Democrat & Chronicle, Rochester, Jan 1, 2024. Also The Press & Sun Bulletin (Binghamton).

About 1 million New Yorkers who stock store shelves and hold other low-wage jobs will get a pay boost in 2024.

New York is raising its minimum wage in January by $1 to $16 an hour for workers in New York City and the neighboring suburbs of Westchester County and Long Island. In the rest of the state, the hourly minimum is rising to $15 from $14.20, an 80-cent hike — and the realization of a $15 statewide...

By Matthew Fazelpoor
NJBIZ, January 1, 2024

As 2024 rings in, it also marks the crossing of a notable threshold here in the Garden State when the minimum wage increases Jan. 1 to $15.13 per hour. That figure, affecting some 350,000 of New Jersey’s nearly 1.9 million hourly workers, surpasses the $15 per hour goal set into law in 2019 and makes the state one of just a handful to reach that mark. ...

In a press release, Business for a Fair Minimum Wage applauded the 22 states (including New Jersey) that are ringing in...

WBAL NewsRadio 1090 and FM 101.5, Dec 30, 2023

The minimum wage in Maryland will increase to $15 an hour on Monday. ... The timeline was moved to Jan. 1, 2024, when Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed the Fair Wage Act of 2023 into law in April.

LISTEN: WBAL’s Robert Lang speaks with Aaron Seyedian of Well Paid Maids

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