By Ian Hoppe
Birmingham News, August 18, 2015

This morning, the Birmingham City Council voted to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 over the next two years. AL.com reached out to the owners of several Birmingham businesses for comment on the changes, which are not slated to take effect until July 2016, when the city's wage floor will increase to $8.50 an hour. ...

According to statistics compiled by the National Employment Law Project, roughly 19 percent of Birmingham workers - 40,000 people - earn less than $10.10. ...

Danny Ray Winter, owner and operator of both...

By Janice Podsada
Omaha World-Herald, August 18, 2015

Omaha was the starting point Monday for U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez’s national tour to highlight the Labor Department’s key initiatives, including raising the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020 from the current $7.25 an hour. Perez ... gave Nebraska a thumbs-up for successfully passing a minimum wage ballot measure last November. The measure, which won easy voter approval, raised the state minimum wage to $8 an hour this year and will boost the state minimum to $9 an hour in January.

Nebraska, Perez...

By Algis Laukaitis
Lincoln Journal Star, August 15, 2015

The owners of a small business in Lincoln will get a chance to sit down with U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez Monday and talk about the minimum wage.

Dave Titterington, who owns the Wild Bird Habitat Stores with his wife, Linda, said he was contacted about a week ago to meet with Perez, who will be in Omaha to promote policies to increase wages of working class Americans.

Nebraska voters approved a minimum wage increase last year. The state minimum wage increased from $7.25 an...

Op-Ed By Cary Brunswick
Daily Star (Oneonta, NY), August 17, 2015

Fifty years ago, when I got my first summer job, the minimum wage was $1.50 an hour. ... It is hard to believe that it has risen only to today’s federal level of $7.25 with the way the cost of living has gone up. Back then gasoline was about 25 cents a gallon; bread was about 25 cents a loaf. Think about it. ...

That’s why many workers earning minimum wage, the working poor, qualify for public assistance despite having full-time jobs. That’s why...

By Marcia Heroux Pounds
Sun Sentinel (FL), August 5, 2015

JM Family Enterprises is raising its minimum wage to $16 an hour, nearly double Florida's $8.05 minimum — a pay hike for 400 workers. But the auto giant's shift is even more far-reaching: It also bumps up wages of about 600 hourly employees who already were making $16 an hour or more ...

"The industry is doing well; we are doing well; and we decided this was the right time," said Colin Brown, chief executive of JM Family, a collection of auto-related businesses based in...

How can a company have an award-winning green operation, pay one of the highest minimum wages to its employees, manufacture in the US and still be very profitable?

We turned to Earth Friendly products CEO, Kelly Vlahakis-Hanks, to tell us how her late Greek immigrant father manage to create a green giant in the US, and how today that giant continues to expand under her leadership, while holding onto some of the best work and environmental ethics.

Earlier this year, Earth Friendly Products, the leading manufacturer in green household and commercial cleaning products, won the Safer Choice Partner of...

LA union wants to be exempt from $15 minimum wage
By Heesun Wee
CNBC, July 30, 2015

As cities and states move independently to raise mandated pay for workers, the role of unions has emerged in the national fight for $15 an hour. ...

According to [Economic Policy Institute] analysis, a federal minimum wage of $12 in 2020 would return the wage floor to about the same position in the overall wage distribution that it had in 1968. ...

Mandated higher pay, of course, is a divisive issue and some small business owners say raised...

Op-Ed By Danny Winter
AL.com, Alabama Media Group, July 28, 2015

As a small business owner in Birmingham, I support raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. This would be good for customers, good for businesses, and good for our city's economic health.

Fair wages are at the core of my business success. I have been in business for over 20 years. I own two eateries: Crestwood Coffee Company and Buck Mulligan's, an Irish pub near the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Most of our 30 employees earn at least $10 an hour today...

By Geri Gibbons
Times Leader (PA), July 26, 2015

WILKES-BARRE — ... Federally, it seems raising the minimum wage has been a long time coming. This past Friday marked six years since the federal minimum wage was last increased in 2009.

Some businesses have come forward with their contention that raising the minimum wage will not only be good for employees, but good for businesses and the economy in general.

According to the website of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, comprised of business and executives supporting a federal minimum wage increase to at least...

By Noam Scheiber
New York Times, July 26, 2015

WASHINGTON — The fight for a $15 minimum wage has gained momentum in New York, California and other places around the country in recent months. But as a national strategy to raise incomes at the bottom of the pay scale, it faces major obstacles, both political and economic.

In many states, particularly those governed by Republicans in the South and the Midwest, there is little chance of raising the minimum wage above the federal level, which has stood at $7.25 since 2009. Congressional Democrats have introduced...

By Kate Rogers
CNBC, July 21, 2015

A New York state board is scheduled to weigh in on fast-food wages on Wednesday. Citing a person familiar with the plans, The Wall Street Journal said the Wage Board is expected to recommend lifting the state's fast-food minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The state's hourly minimum is $8.75, and will reach $9 by the end of the year. The board—created at the urging of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo—has the power to raise wages for state fast-food workers without legislative approval. ... Within the fast-food industry, McDonald's...

By Aimee Picchi
CBS MoneyWatch, July 20, 2015

The global economy is improving. Just don't tell many of the people who live and work in it. That's according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which has published a report about the labor conditions of its nearly three dozen member countries, including the U.S., Japan, and European countries such as the U.K. While economic conditions have generally improved, the recovery is far from complete, and remains uneven across countries.

One of the ailments of today's job market is a shift toward part-time work...

By Amanda Yeager
Baltimore Sun, July 1, 2015

The minimum wage in Maryland is on the rise. The second increase in the state's base hourly rate went into effect on Wednesday, six months after the first pay hike from $7.25 to $8 went into effect on Jan. 1.

Minimum wage workers will earn $8.25 an hour for the next year. The Maryland General Assembly voted to raise the minimum wage in increments when it passed the bill in 2014 – the rate will now rise on an annual basis for the next three years, to...

By Kate Rogers
CNBC, June 30, 2015

As advocates work to raise the federal minimum wage, the Obama Administration is taking action where it can to fight income inequality. President Barack Obama late Monday introduced a proposal to extend overtime payment to more white-collar workers. Obama unveiled his plan to extend overtime protections to nearly 5 million workers in 2016. ...

The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.

Beyond smaller employers, some of America's largest businesses already have raised wages above $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum.

The Gap announced hikes for workers...

Some business leaders have backed counternarrative that wage hikes will benefit all levels of economy

By Cherri Senders
Los Angeles Business Journal, June 22, 2015

... The public conversation around lifting the minimum wage is both familiar and distressing. We have come to accept a narrative that pits the interests of low-wage workers and their families against those of business and the economic climate. But what if this narrative is more myth than fact? What if there were actually a convergence between the interests of workers at the bottom of the economic ladder and businesses...