Embracing a living wage is good for business, and good for all

Op-Ed By Jeff Furman, Chair of the Ben & Jerry's Board of Directors

Fortune, April 9, 2015

... It’s a moral disgrace that so many hard-working Americans have to scrape to get by on a minimum wage that is 25% below what it was in 1968. It’s also bad for business.

I chair the board of a company —Ben & Jerry’s—that has had a livable wage policy for about 20 years. Exact wage levels are determined by local costs of living. In Vermont...

By Karen Ridder
Newsmax, April 8, 2015

According to the U.S. Department of Labor some small business owners think an increase in the federal minimum wage would potentially benefit their bottom line. These business owners see the wage increase as a way to lift consumer purchasing power and help the economy.

Here are five quotes form small business owners, some who support and some who are leery of increasing minimum wage requirements:

"It's absurd that the minimum wage is still just $7.25, while people have rising expenses from rent and transportation to tuition and student...

Herald Mail (MD), April 7, 2015

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A Pennsylvania state representative has proposed a bill to raise the state's minimum wage, but two Franklin County lawmakers are skeptical of the bill's intentions.

The bill proposed by Rep. Patty Kim, D-Dauphin, would increase the minimum wage from the current $7.25 per hour to $9 per hour 60 days after it passes, then to $10.10 per hour a year later. The bill also would include an annual cost-of-living adjustment beginning in January 2016. ...

Alissa Barron-Menza, vice president of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage...

By Mark Friedman
Arkansas Business, Apr 6, 2015

Wal-Mart Store Inc.’s announcement in February that it would start paying employees $9 an hour this year and $10 in 2016 touched off a minimum wage arms race. ...

“Certainly it’s great that they did this,” said Alissa Barron-Menza, vice president for Boston-based Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, which calls itself a national network of business organizations, business owners and executives who believe a fair minimum wage makes good business sense. “At the same time, many employers are already at this level or higher. And so we believe that they should have done more.”

KTHV, Little Rock, Ark, April 6, 2015

When Walmart announced in February that nearly 500,000 of its workers would be getting a raise, it started a minimum wage arms race.

This week, Arkansas Business looks at how other companies including McDonald's, T.J. Maxx and Target followed in Walmart's footsteps. ...

Analysts say that higher pay should help with recruiting and retaining employees. While few would complain about a pay raise, there are some who say Walmart hasn't gone far enough.

A Boston-based group called "Business for a Fair Minimum Wage" said many employers are already...

By Kendra Nichols
ABC 27 WHTM (PA), April 2, 2015

Representative Patty Kim wants to see some movement on her bill to raise the state minimum wage to $10.10. ... Opponents of House Bill 250 argue raising the minimum wage would hurt small businesses.

“That is not actually majority opinion in the small business community,” said Alissa Barron-Menza, vice president of Business for Fair Minimum Wage. “As folks have a little bit more money to spend, that gets turned right back around into buying needed goods and services they couldn’t afford before.”

By Alexander Kaufman
Huffington Post, April 2, 2015

Some of the country’s biggest employers are finally raising wages amid mounting pressure from protesters and a hardier job market.

McDonald’s on Wednesday became the latest major company to give workers -- albeit a fraction of its total workforce -- a pay bump that will lift average hourly pay to $9.90 from $9.01. The move, which will go into effect on July 1, follows a similar change made in February by Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer.

By Dylan Martin
Mainebiz Daily, Mar 23, 2015

2015 Business Leader of the Year

Ask Jim Wellehan what it means to be a business leader, and for his initial response, you likely won't hear him mention Lamey-Wellehan, his 100-year-old, Auburn-based family retail shoe business. Instead, he'll bring up a word that means a great deal to him: community. ... [A]ll associates are paid above the minimum wage, with the lowest earners making $11.90 to $19 an hour, commission included, and managers earning between the low- and mid-40s annually. ...

By Carol Coultas
Portland Press Herald (ME), Mar 7, 2015

...When Wal-Mart announced it was raising its minimum wage to $9 an hour, T.J. Maxx and other retailers followed suit within one week. Some companies established their own thresholds earlier – Whole Foods, Ikea, the Gap, Starbucks all offer minimum wages of $9 per hour or more. Here in Maine, Adam Lee, owner of Lee Auto Malls, contacted me last spring to say his company was adopting a $10-per-hour minimum wage. Jim Wellehan, owner of Lamey-Wellehan shoe stores, has always paid well above minimum wage, with new employees now earning $10 per hour. ...

By Jason Surbey
Work in Progress, U.S. Department of Labor Blog, Mar 7, 2015

As President Obama and Secretary Perez have said, raising the minimum wage isn’t just the right thing to do for working families it’s the smart thing to do to grow our economy.

And business leaders of all kinds agree, saying that they see higher wages as a sound business investment. They know that higher wages boosts productivity and reduces the high costs associated with turnover. They also know that consumer spending drives our economy; more money in people’s pockets means more...

By Nakell Williams
WABI-TV CBS 5 (Bangor, Maine), Mar 4, 2015

Lamey Wellehan’s Shoe Store has been around for more than 100 years.

“Wage wise it has always been on the upper tier making sure we are all well paid,” said Lamey Wellehan Manager, Don Lessard.

The owner Jim Whellehan believes in treating his team with fairness and dignity.

“As a sales associate the highest in 2013 was just under $20,” said Lamey Wellehan President, Jim Wellehan.

Employees have always made above the state’s minimum wage of $7.50, but that’s not the case for many...

By Eric Morath and Jeffrey Sparshott
Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2015

Restaurant workers received bigger raises last year than workers in most other jobs.

Is that because the minimum wage has increased in recent years in two dozen states? Or because Americans are eating out more, causing restaurant owners to bump up pay for burger flippers, waitresses and dishwashers?

The reality is some of both.

Restaurants have hired at a faster pace than the typical company since the middle of 2010. Food workers’ hourly pay grew 3.1% last year after growing less than 2% a...

By Eric Morath and Jeffrey Sparshott
Wall Street Journal, Feb 27, 2015

Wage growth is breaking out in an unexpected corner of the U.S. economy: the nation’s restaurants and bars.

Food-service employment has surged since the recession ended nearly six years ago, growing twice as fast as overall payrolls. But those gains had largely failed to translate into better wages in the sector, until recently. Restaurant wages zoomed up to an annualized pace of more than 3% in the second half of last year from below a 1.5% pace in the first half of 2013...

By Basia Hellwig
Investopedia, Feb 26, 2015

Last week, Walmart (WMT), the largest private employer in the United States, announced that half a million of its workers would get a pay bump to at least $9 an hour by April (2015) and at least $10 by next February (2016). That’s good news for Walmart employees, but also is likely to have a ripple effect for many more at other large employers of low-wage workers. One might ask, what took so long? ...

The federal minimum wage has been $7.25, or $15,080 a year, since 2009...

By Windsor Genova
Local News Nashville, Feb 24, 2015
Nationally syndicated by Local News Network with placements in Baltimore, Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Ft. Worth, Milwaukee, Tampa, and many more.

Retail giant Walmart Inc. announced Thursday it will increase the minimum hourly wage of its half a million employees to $9 in April and to $10 next year. ...

"Walmart’s low wages have been a drag on the U.S. economy, with many of its employees relying on public assistance just to get by. We need to restore the eroded purchasing power of the federal minimum wage so that paying wages that workers can live on is not optional. That will boost business and strengthen our economy,” said Holly Sklar , chief executive of the Business for a Fair Minimum Wage ( BFMW ), according to The New York Times.