By Rachel Powers
Orange Coast Magazine, May 16, 2016

The 38-year-old CEO took over Earth Friendly Products two years ago from her father, company founder Van Vlahakis, after he died. Vlahakis-Hanks, who had worked in all facets of the business, has become a careful steward of her father’s vision. But she has made her own mark, too. Why five production facilities to make the company’s natural cleaning products? “When I deliver to the distribution centers of my local retail partners, I’m right there in their backyards. It enables us to stay carbon-neutral, and I can cross...

Op-Ed By Andy Shallal
Washington Post, May 13, 2016

Andy Shallal, who ran for D.C. mayor in 2014, owns the restaurants Busboys and Poets and Mulebone.

Every month, an average of more than 1,000 people move to the District. Small and large businesses are starting and thriving in every corner of our city. Restaurants have been popping up seemingly faster than mushrooms.

This unprecedented growth has not been without its challenges. It is no secret that the District is less affordable than ever and the disparity of wealth is wide. This situation is not sustainable or desirable in...

By Carol Coultas
Portland Press Herald, May 10, 2016

The Legislature may have adjourned, but talk of the minimum wage endures. Voters will be asked on November’s ballot to endorse a measure to raise the state’s $7.50 minimum wage incrementally to $12 by 2020. That coupled with Portland’s recent hike of the minimum wage to $10.10 drew the interest of The Christian Science Monitor, which was in town to write about Maine’s minimum wage efforts. ...

On a national platform, at least one Mainer is stumping to raise the federal minimum wage to $12 by 2020. Margo...

Op-Ed By Gary Gerber, CEO, Sun Light & Power
Paying our employees a living wage — and more — has always made good business sense to me. Now the state is finally catching up ...

By Simon Montlake
Christian Science Monitor, May 7, 2016

PORTLAND, MAINE — On a gray midweek morning, Jessica Rogers kneads pizza dough inside a downtown food court. A 20-something theater graduate, she’s working two jobs to pay the rent and put aside money for acting school in the fall. Across town at the Squeaky Clean laundromat, Lorena White ... puts in 27 hours a week and alternates with her husband, a hotel banquet server, in taking care of their teenage son.

In January, both women got a pay bump to $10.10 an hour, the new minimum wage in...

The News, Nashville, May 5, 2016

Last week, a small business owner from Nashville travelled to Washington DC to testify before Congress about how businesses and the economy will benefit if the federal minimum wage is raised above the current rate of $7.25 per hour. Speaking to the House Democratic Caucus Forum, the founder and CEO of LetterLogic, Sherry Stewart Deutschmann shared her own experiences as a business person who pays her employees $16 an hour, 45% above the minimum wage amount.

“Until a few years ago our entry-level pay was $12 an hour. At that time...

By Elaine Pofeldt
CNBC, May 6, 2016

With a debate heating up over how the rise in the minimum wage will affect job growth — especially in the small-business arena — new findings reveal surprising truths.

In their latest survey of small-business owners, Manta, a social network for entrepreneurs, found they were almost evenly split on the issue, with 51 percent favoring raising the minimum wage and 49 percent against it. ... John Swanciger, CEO of Manta, said he was initially surprised by the percentage of small-business owners who support a minimum wage increase. But after studying Manta's...

The Advocate, May 4, 2016

Louisiana’s 2016 Small Business Person of the Year joined the list of firms calling for an increase of the federal minimum wage to at least $12 by 2020.

In a news release, Angela O’Byrne, president of New Orleans’ based architecture firm Perez APC, said the country’s minimum wage has been stagnant for too long.

“Miring full-time workers in poverty makes absolutely no sense from a business perspective,” O’Byrne said. “Paying fair wages boosts consumer demand and spending, which drives job creation and forges stronger businesses and communities.”

A gradual increase...

Biz New Orleans, May 4, 2016

NEW ORLEANS – The business owners named by the U.S. Small Business Administration as Louisiana and Maine’s 2016 Small Business People of the Year are calling on lawmakers to increase the federal minimum wage to at least $12 by 2020.

According to Angela O’Byrne, Louisiana’s 2016 Small Business Person of the Year and first runner up for National Small Business Person of the Year, and Margo Walsh, Maine’s 2016 Small Business Person of the Year, many lawmakers aren’t listening to what entrepreneurs really want out of Washington—policies that will...

Greater Baton Rouge Business Report, May 4, 2016

Higher pay: Angela O’Byrne, Louisiana’s Small Business Person of the Year, is calling on U.S. policymakers to increase the federal minimum wage to at least $12 by 2020. In a statement, O’Byrne, who is also a runner-up for the National Small Business Person of the Year, says the federal minimum wage has been stagnant for far too long. “Miring full-time workers in poverty makes absolutely no sense from a business perspective,” says O’Byrne, who is president and CEO of the New Orleans-based Perez, APC. “Paying fair wages boosts...

NPR & WBUR, Here & Now, May 4, 2016

Last year, Seattle began phasing in a minimum wage of $15 an hour. Businesses with more than 500 employees will pay that wage by 2018. Smaller companies have until 2021 to comply, but some entrepreneurs are embracing the call for a higher minimum wage ahead of schedule. One of them is Renee Erickson, a Seattle chef, who this week won the 2016 James Beard Award as the best chef in the Northwest. She employs 100 people at her restaurant group. Erickson speaks with Here & Now’...

By Eleanor Kennedy
Nashville Business Journal, April 29, 2016

LetterLogic founder and CEO Sherry Stewart Deutschmann has long been a vocal advocate of increasing the federal minimum wage. But this week she made the pitch to a new audience for her: members of the U.S. House of Representatives. ... Deutschmann was one of three entrepreneurs who, along with an analyst from the Economic Policy Institute, addressed Democratic members of the education and workforce committee in a forum on April 27. ... 

[Deutschmann spoke] to "the business perspective of increasing minimum [the] wage," during this week's forum. When she increased employees' starting...

Letter to the Editor By Jack Kinstlinger
Baltimore Sun, April 25, 2016

Commentator Stephen J.K. Walters claims that the proposal by City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke to hike Baltimore's minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2020 would put another nail in the city's economic coffin ("A well-intentioned nail in Baltimore's economic coffin," April 19).

I disagree. Mr. Walters cites an obscure Princeton study dating from the 1990s. But why use a single outdated study as evidence when real life experiences are all around us? And they certainly do not support his position.

San Francisco, Calif...

By Robb Mandelbaum
Forbes, April 24, 2016

...  LuntzGlobal, a communications firm founded by über-GOP pollster Frank Luntz surveyed 1,000 top executives (nearly half were owners) and found that they supported raising the minimum wage 79% - 8%. ...

LuntzGlobal delivered this news in a January webinar to the cohort of Americans perhaps least likely to welcome it: executives from state chambers of commerce. The news evidently took many of the participants by surprise. “When you were talking about raising the minimum wage to the surveyors, does that mean that they are worried about raising...

By Katie Little
CNBC, April 22,  2016

Work two hours at the $7.25 federal minimum wage, and you still wouldn't make the lowest hourly wage at Earth Friendly Products.

It's been two years since the California-based company decided to hike its lowest rate to $17 on Earth Day — a move it says has cut voluntary turnover by nearly 50 percent. Right away, it saw productivity and morale increase — improvements that offset the higher wage. Revenue has also jumped, which has helped balance out the larger labor costs. About half of workers still make this $17...