By Jeremy Foster, News Editor
KTAR-FM, April 22, 2014

PHOENIX -- ... On Monday afternoon, small business owners, employees and anti-poverty activists joined several state lawmakers for a rally at the State Capitol as part of the "Give America a Raise" bus tour. The message to Congress was clear: Raise the minimum wage in Arizona from $7.90 to $10.10 an hour.

Brandon Cooley runs an insurance agency in central Phoenix and said employers who say they can't afford to pay their workers an extra $2.20 an hour are only hurting themselves.

"They can't afford not...

Op-Ed By Scott Nash
Washington Post, April 20, 2014

One of the companies I admire most is Costco. ... Back in 2008 when the economy was in a downward spiral, founder and chief executive Jim Sinegal said that instead of looking for ways to cut costs and reduce compensation like most companies were doing, it was especially important to find ways of supporting the staff in this time of hardship. ...

Costco’s average pay rate is $21 per hour, while BJ’s average is $11 and Sam’s Club’s $12. However, Costco is the performance leader in the club...

Op-Ed By Fran Quigley
Indianapolis Star, April 15, 2014

... The McDonald’s and Walmart business model may be built on exorbitant CEO salaries and referring their front-line employees to the welfare office, food pantries and plasma banks. But that is not the way mom and pop stores want to operate, in part because low-paid workers have such limited purchasing power. “The biggest problem for Main Street businesses is lack of customer demand,” Business for a Fair Minimum Wage director Holly Sklar says. “Corporate profits are at their highest since 1950, as a percentage of national income...

Op-Ed By State Sen. Hoon-Yung Hopgood
Detroit News, April 15, 2014

Last week, I tried living on just $42 worth of groceries. The endeavor was part of the “Minimum Wage Grocery Challenge,” where state legislators across the country are learning what it’s like to face the hardships working families face every day. ... 

The more I learn about what it truly means to survive on the scarce resources that the minimum wage permits, the more wholeheartedly I understand that it is simply not enough. While I believe that allowing people the opportunity to cross the poverty...

By Dan Greenwald
KMOV TV St. Louis, April 14, 2014

US Senator Dick Durbin was in the Metro East Monday in support of a plan to raise the minimum wage. ... Durbin also said the increase would help businesses because it would give their customers more money to spend.

[Business owner Eric Neal participated in the Roundtable event]

See more

By Alex Jackson
Capital Gazette, April 8, 2014

The Maryland General Assembly has sent Gov. Martin O'Malley legislation to hike the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2018.

The House of Delegates voted 87-47 on Monday, the final day of the assembly's 90-day session, to concur with Senate changes to the bill. The Senate passed the bill on Saturday by a 34-13 vote.

Under the bill, Maryland's minimum wage would rise from $7.25 to $8 an hour on Jan. 1, 2015; to $8.25 on July 1, 2015; to $8.75 on July 1, 2016; to $9.25...

State's Minimum Wage to Hit $10.10 An Hour By 2018
By Scott Calvert and Eric Morath
Wall Street Journal, April 7, 2014

Maryland lawmakers on Monday approved gradually raising the minimum wage there to $10.10 an hour, the latest in a wave of states that have boosted the pay rate amid uncertain prospects in Congress for a federal increase. ...

Some businesses owners say the wage increase will help their bottom lines.

"This will be good for my business," said Scott Nash, chief executive of Mom's Organic Market, a grocer with seven Maryland locations. "Larger...

Washington Post, April 7, 2014

Excerpt: Pay: Hardware store owner backs increase
By Jonathan O’Connell, Capital Business

Gina Schaefer’s Ace Hardware store on P Street NW contributed to the resurgence of Logan Circle, and she now owns nine stores in D.C. and Maryland. When developers ask residents what retailers they’d like to see in their own neighborhoods, Schaefer’s name is frequently among those mentioned. Schaefer says one key to her success has been paying her employees more than competitors, and last week she joined officials on Capitol Hill to support a federal minimum wage increase.

“When...

Home Channel News, April 7, 2014

The continuing debate over the minimum wage law is one that disproportionately affects retailers. That doesn't mean all retailers see it the same way.

Leading the charge against federal raises is the National Retail Federation. The advocacy group has published statement after statement urging Congress to stand down to the push for higher wages. ...

Gina Schaefer, the owner of nine Ace Hardware stores in the D.C. metro area took a stand at Capitol Hill in favor of raising the federal minimum wage. Schaefer spoke at an April 3...

By Natalie Wright, Maria Rigou, Jon Price
Washtenaw Voice, Washtenaw Community College (MI), April 7, 2014

... During his visit to the University of Michigan last week, Obama addressed an audience of more than a thousand U-M students and other special guests, speaking to them with an air of cool approachability. But before addressing wide-ranging issues from minimum wage, partisan politics, immigration reform, and student loans to economic and social inequalities, Obama spoke to the students about his failed “March Madness” bracket – and his lunch at Zingerman’s Deli. ...

Why Zingerman’s?

Obama has frequented...

By Jeremy Allen
MLive Michigan, April 6, 2014

Ray Gholston works hard to earn his paychecks. He’s a full-time clerk at a retail store on the west side of Ann Arbor, where he helps keep the store organized and checks customers out at the register all while making $7.40 per hour.

He’s also homeless and has been since November, spending his nights – and some off days – at the Delonis Center in downtown Ann Arbor. Gholston said that his low-wage job doesn’t afford him the ability to pay rent anywhere in Ann Arbor or close...

By Sharyn Jackson
Des Moines Register, April 5, 2014

Raising the minimum wage will give workers more money to spend at local businesses, boosting profitability and the economy, U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez said Saturday in Des Moines.

Perez visited Raygun, a T-shirt shop and screen printing company in Des Moines' East Village, along with Iowa Democrats U.S. Senator Tom Harkin, U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, and state Sen. Jack Hatch, to tour the facility and campaign for raising the minimum wage. ...

[Mike] Draper said he pays his employees above the current $7.25...

By Erich Wagner
Alexandria Times (VA), April 4, 2014

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) visited the Arlandria branch of MOM’s Organic Market on Monday to laud the company’s practice of paying workers above the federal minimum wage.

Kaine toured the Mount Vernon Avenue store with MOM’s CEO Scott Nash in advance of heated debate in Congress this week over a bill raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour in the next several years. He said that MOM’s shows opponents and other companies that raising the wage is not a so-called “job killer.”...

DOL News, April 3, 2014

A 10-state bus tour campaign to increase the minimum wage came to a close April 3 in our nation's capital. The bus tour, led by Americans United for Change, highlighted the stories of workers throughout the country who are struggling to put food on the table and buy medicine for their children. U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez joined the April 3 event, where Ruben Jones, a full-time cook at a restaurant, had the crowd in tears when he told his story about how he has two children and...

By Jessica Webster, Ann Arbor News
MLive Michigan, April 3, 2014

Sometimes a hunch pays off. When you're the food and dining reporter at the local newspaper, you might find yourself one of the only people left in the office on the day when the President of the United States is in town. ... And at some point, you might just decide that you should grab a camera and head over to Zingerman's Deli, just in case the president had a craving for a Reuben. ...

After all, the president - or a member of his staff...