By Melanie Trottman
Wall Street Journal, Dec 23, 2012

A dozen states and cities will raise their minimum wages on Jan. 1, and efforts are afoot in Congress and several state legislatures to push through increases next year, spurring fresh debate about whether such efforts would help or hurt the already sluggish economic recovery.

The minimum wage will increase in 10 states—including Florida, Ohio and Colorado—as well as San Francisco and Albuquerque, N.M., on Jan. 1. San Jose, Calif., will raise its minimum wage in March. Ten of the increases are inflation-related triggers, while the...

By Matthew Wong
Inc., Nov 29, 2012 

When entrepreneur and Inc. 30 Under 30 alum Nikhil Arora received an email from the White House last Thursday to attend a small business meeting, he didn’t know exactly what to expect or even who from the Obama administration would be present. …

When the group arrived at the Roosevelt Room in the White House, they took their seats across from President Obama and senior White House staff members. Then, after water was served, they got down to it. The group launched into a conversation that covered a cross-section of topics, including capital...

By James Fallows
The Atlantic, Nov 23, 2012 

... Just before Thanksgiving, following the observations of a Boston bartender, I published messages from several readers on the importance of raising the minimum wage. In real terms, the minimum wage has gone steadily down; these readers argued that keeping it even with inflation, or better yet moving it substantially ahead, would help lower-income Americans while not hurting the economy as a whole. 

Now some responses. ...

2) The words of Ron Unz. A very large number of readers pointed me to an essay in the American Conservative...

By David Howard King and Kamelia Kilawan
Gotham Gazette, Nov 20, 2012

NEW YORK — Earlier this week, at the Church of the Holy Apostles in Chelsea, about 50 people waited in line  with cafeteria trays to have an early Thanksgiving lunch consisting of an apple, hot sandwich and cider.

As they came to the end of the line, they were asked to sign a card appealing to New York State Senators to pass legislation to raise the minimum wage by $1.25 to $8.25.

It is unclear whether politicians will be listening to the message...

Republicans cite storm as excuse to 'keep people down'

Common Dreams, Nov 20, 2012

New Jersey Republicans attempted to sideline a new proposal to raise the minimum wage to $8.50 from $7.25 an hour and provide annual cost-of-living increases.

The Budget Committee in the Democratically controlled House advanced the bill by a 7-6 vote, and the Senate is expected to deliver final approval next week, The Inquirer reports.

House GOP members cited the capacious storm recovery as a reason to wait on the bill, for fear the wage increase would add undue labor costs to...

Op-Ed By Melanie Beam
Journal News and other papers, Nov 18, 2012
Distributed by American Forum 

After missing an opportunity earlier this year to pass an increase in New York’s minimum wage, the state Legislature is now expected to convene a special session in the coming weeks to consider a pay raise — for themselves.

As a business person and advocate for upstate local businesses, I cannot help but shake my head in disbelief. A minimum wage increase should take priority over a pay raise for legislators — not the other way around.

An increased...

By the HR Specialist: Compensation and Benefits
Business Management Daily, Nov 5, 2012

File this under “Unexpected.” A coalition of small business owners is calling on Congress to increase the federal minimum wage to $9.80 per hour, or $2.55 more than the current rate. The goal: to increase poor workers’ spending in hopes of stimulating the economy.

“At $7.25 an hour, the current minimum wage comes to just $15,080 a year for full-time work. Today’s minimum wage workers have far less buying power” than previous generations did, said a statement by a group called Business...

Its success stems from its focus on its customers -- and workers

By Will Ashworth
Investor Place, October 11, 2012

Discount retailer Costco announced its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings Oct. 10, the third quarterly report since the retirement of long-time CEO and co-founder Jim Sinegal. As is most often the case, Costco’s results were better than expected.
…

However, when we do go, we always notice (my wife has 20 years retail experience) how genuinely happy the employees are to be working there. Costco’s starting wage for those working on the floor is $11 per hour...

By Peter S. Green
Bloomberg BusinessWeek, September 13, 2012

In election years, Democrats and Republicans talk about small businesses as the epitome of America’s can-do spirit and the foundation of the nation’s economy. President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have seen no reason to deviate from the script. But while they profess to have entrepreneurs’ best interests at heart, flattery is no sure route to winning their votes. One reason is that small business owners are not a monolithic interest group. …

Many policies, including those covering taxes, banking, health care, trade, and the environment, favor...

By Tom Watson
Forbes, September 3, 2012

On Labor Day 1978, I started my first minimum wage job, making $2.65 an hour at the local supermarket stocking shelves and bagging groceries, and driving a battered Buick Skylark to work after school that fall with Darkness on the Edge of Town in permanent residence on the 8-track. That $2.65 is worth roughly $9.31 today, if calculated against inflation – or more than two dollars above the Federally-mandated $7.25 minimum wage. ...

The last time the Federal minimum wage rose was in 2009, in the teeth of...

By Colin Gordon and Donald Cohen
Huffington Post, Sep 3, 2012

Excerpt: As organizations such as the Chamber and National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) have become more partisan and strident in their attack on labor standards, new organizations -- including the Main Street Alliance, Business for Shared Prosperity and the Small Business Majority -- are speaking out for a renewed social contract that recognizes the importance of wages to purchasing power.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/colin-gordon/living-wage_b_1846706.html 

By Karen E. Klein
Bloomberg BusinessWeek, August 17, 2012

Excerpt:

... Historically, efforts to raise minimum wages have drawn staunch opposition from small business advocacy groups. But as U.S. income inequality has widened and economic studies have challenged the long-held notion that minimum wage increases suppress employment, small business owners and lobbyists are turning up on both sides of the debate. ...

In contrast to her counterparts at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has staunchly opposed minimum wage increases, Margot Dorfman, chief executive of the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce, supports an increase. “Raising...

By Ragan Robinson
Gaston Gazette (NC), August 4, 2012 

... Reporter inboxes filled with releases from Business for a Fair Minimum Wage last week, applauding new federal legislation to raise the minimum wage to $9.80 in three years.

Minimum wage workers have less buying power than they had 50 years ago, the group said. ...

The think tanks can argue this one, but any way you slice it, the Americans who earn the least would see more income from an increase in the minimum wage.

“I know the last time we had an increase in minimum...

By Chelyen Davis
Free Lance Star (VA), Aug 4, 2012

When Sen. Jim Webb entered the Senate in 2007, one of the first bills he backed raised the federal minimum wage. ...

This week he signed on to co-sponsor another bill to raise the federal minimum wage, this time to $9.80 an hour over two years.

The minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour, where it’s been since 2009. That rate was set in the 2007 bill, which at the time was the first increase in the federal minimum wage in a decade. ...

This...

By Carolyn M. Brown
Black Enterprise, August 1, 2012

It’s been three years now since there was a national minimum wage increase. The current federal minimum wage was raised from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour as of July 24, 2009. At $7.25 an hour, that comes to just $15,080 a year for full-time work—a figure still below the official poverty line. Small business owners, congressional leaders, and advocates across the country are calling for renewed focus on sub-poverty earnings that millions of Americans are expected to get by on. ...

Holy Sklar, director of the...