Op-Ed By Holly Sklar
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune News Service, July 20, 2012

Time flies when you're moving backward. With the federal minimum wage stuck at $7.25 an hour since July 24, 2009, workers now have less buying power than they did in 1997 at the start of the longest period in history without a raise.

It took 10 years, from 1997 until 2007, to raise the minimum wage above $5.15. A worker would need $7.36 today to match the buying power of the $5.15 minimum wage in 1997.

If you picture raising minimum wage as...

By Ellen Freilich
Reuters, July 24, 2012

Bucking the usual tune of private sector lobbyists, a group called Business for a Fair Minimum Wage is calling for a hike in the minimum wage, saying it would boost business and the economy.

Read more:

http://blogs.reuters.com/macroscope/2012/07/24/three-years-after-last-increase-business-group-calls-for-u-s-minimum-wage-hike/

By Craig Smith
Pittsburgh Tribune Review, July 24, 2012

Excerpt: Tuesday marks the anniversary of the last federal minimum wage hike in 2009. ...

Some small business owners believe the raise is overdue.Today's minimum-wage workers have far less buying power than their counterparts in 1968 when the minimum wage was at its highest value of $10.55 adjusted for inflation, according to Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, a national network of business owners and executives. 

http://triblive.com/home/2257027-74/wage-minimum-workers-policy-increase-bill-business-institute-jobs-pittsburgh 

Alaska Business Monthly, July 2012

http://www.akbizmag.com/Alaska-Business-Monthly/July-2012/Sm-Biz-Owners-Say-Raise-Minimum-Wage-As-July-24-Marks-Anniversary-of-Last-Increase/

Op-Ed By Mark S. Jaffe
President and CEO, Greater New York Chamber of Commerce
Distributed by American Forum, June 2012

Our mission at the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce is to improve the business climate and quality of life in New York. And raising the minimum wage will do just that.

That’s right – a minimum wage increase will improve our business climate, not hurt it. It will help local businesses grow and prosper. And it will improve the quality of life for New Yorkers.

The Greater New York Chamber serves 25,000 business and...

By Margot Dorfman, CEO, U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce
Albany Times Union, June 9, 2012

While some portray debate over the minimum wage as a fight between business and workers, raising the minimum wage is in reality good for both. The business owners I talk with every day believe that, far from hurting their businesses, raising the minimum wage in fact helps small businesses and the broader economy.

The number one problem for our member businesses is that the recovery is slow because sales are still weak. Too many of their customers have been out of...

Op-Ed By Jonathon Welch

Buffalo News, June 6, 2012

The best way for state legislators in New York to support small businesses is to help us get our customers back.

Unfortunately, many policy-makers in Albany are trying to support small businesses by blocking policies needed to boost consumer demand. A case in point is the current proposal to raise the state minimum wage, which the Republican leadership in the State Senate has refused to consider even after the Assembly approved an increase.

Read more:

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial-page/from-our-readers/another-voice/article889908.ece

Cover Story By Laura Nahmias
City & State, June 4, 2012 

Five days a week Michelle Dawkins wakes up at 2:30 a.m. and drives from her Bronx apartment to begin her shift at JFK Airport, ferrying wheelchair-bound passengers among the airport’s eight terminals. From 4:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Dawkins—whom her co-workers affectionately call “Mother Love”—will make $7.25 an hour, or $58 for the day. If Dawkins, 42, doesn’t require an unpaid sick day, and if the airport needs her for 40 hours each week—which is not always a certainty during the lean fall and winter...

By John Golden
Westchester County and Fairfield County Business Journals, June 1, 2012

Support for increasing New York’s minimum wage has grown among business advocacy groups and business owners and executives statewide in the closing weeks of a legislative session in Albany ...

In Westchester County, the wage hike has not been a high-priority issue for the two largest business groups here, The Business Council of Westchester and Westchester County Association. Neither has taken a position on the bill passed by the Democrat-controlled Assembly in May, which would raise the state’s minimum hourly wage from...

By Andrew Wilkes
Huffington Post, June 1, 2012

Governor Cuomo has an opportunity to exercise economic leadership on behalf of the Empire State's most vulnerable families. Despite his characterizations, raising the state's minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50 can and should be done. According to a recent Siena College poll, 79 percent of New York State voters share this sentiment. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver champions an increased minimum wage. Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos opposes it. Governor Cuomo, then, is the difference maker. Given his political capital, deal-making abilit, and high approval rating, Albany's chief...

By Rod Watson
Buffalo News, May 31, 2012

From the “you can’t make this stuff up” department:

The State Senate’s Republican leader opposes hiking New York’s minimum wage because paying workers more means they’d lose some government benefits.

Really. That’s among Majority Leader Dean Skelos’ objections to the idea that New Yorkers be able to lift themselves out of poverty by working hard. ...

The public knows that, as evidenced by Wednesday’s Quinnipiac University poll showing wide support for the higher wage floor. Some Buffalo entrepreneurs know it, too.

Business issues are “much bigger than...

A late push for higher state wage

By Marlene Kennedy
Daily Gazette (Schenectady, NY), May 31, 2012

With less than a month left in the 2012 legislative session, there’s a good chance a higher minimum wage won’t become law in New York anytime soon.

That didn’t dissuade business owners and advocates from holding a conference call with reporters last week to talk up their support for raising the state’s base wage for hourly workers. “This is something whose time is past due,” said Mark Jaffe, president and CEO of the Greater New York Chamber of...

By Martin Rothenberg
Opinion Today, Syracuse Post-Standard, May 31, 2012

I have been a small business owner in Syracuse since 1991. My first company, Syracuse Language Systems, developed and sold multimedia software, and grew from a start-up with a few employees to 120 employees when it was sold. My present company, Glottal Enterprises, makes medical electronics for speech and voice diagnosis and correction that is sold worldwide. It presently has five employees, but we are growing.

Neither company has ever seen fit to pay only the minimum wage. As I found out quickly at Syracuse...

By Vera H-C Chan
Trending Now, Yahoo News, May 30, 2012 

What does $7.25 an hour get you?

These days, barely two gallons of gas. You'd probably have to work 30 minutes to enjoy a tall Frappuccino (maybe more if prices keep going up), although that's an indulgence when a box of diapers would cost about two hours of labor.

As the economy slowly rebuilds itself, talk about raising the minimum wage is, well, on the rise, and it has taken on more urgency in cities, states, and at the national level:

…

And while...

Op-Ed by Holly Sklar
Distributed in Mass. by American Forum, May 30, 2012: Fall River Herald News, Taunton Daily Gazette, Attleboro Sun Chronicle, Medfield Press, Providence Journal, more. 

Massachusetts led the nation when it passed the first state minimum wage law a hundred years ago on June 4, 1912. Today, it is a laggard.

Our state minimum wage has been stuck at $8 an hour since 2008. That’s less than the $8.46 value of the 1956 minimum wage, adjusted for inflation – and way below its peak value of $10.58 in 1968. Today, Massachusetts has...