Press Release, Feb 26, 2014

Washington, D.C. – House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn, and Members of Congress held a press event today to announce a discharge petition on the minimum wage.  Leader Pelosi and House Democratic Members were joined by business owners and advocates who called on Congress to pass H.R. 1010, the Fair Minimum Wage Act, and #RaiseTheWage to $10.10 for millions of Americans.  Below are the Leader’s remarks:

“On behalf of my colleagues behind me and across the aisle here, I want to thank...

By Steve Raabe
The Denver Post,  02/26/2014

Raising the U.S. minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would improve the economy as well as living conditions for hundreds of thousands of Coloradans, a federal official said Wednesday at a Denver event. 

"It has a positive economic impact," said Laura Fortman, deputy administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor's wage and hour division. "These (minimum-wage) workers are not investing their money in offshore accounts," Fortman said. "They are paying rent and buying groceries. If they have some extra disposable income, maybe they'll take the family out for a...

By Deirdre Walsh, CNN Senior Congressional Producer
CNN, February 26, 2014

... House Democrats filed what is known as a "discharge petition" on Wednesday. If they get a majority of members to sign it, Republican leaders must put the Democratic bill increasing the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour on the floor. Even if all 199 House Democrats signed the petition, it would take roughly 18 Republicans to defy their leaders and press for a vote. ...

Even though Congress isn't likely to pass anything this year, a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed...

By Seung Min Kim
Politico, February 25, 2014

House Democrats will formally launch a discharge petition Wednesday on raising the federal minimum wage ... House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will lead an event Wednesday afternoon flanked by her top deputies, rank-and-file Democrats, and business owners and advocates to make the case for legislation that would phase in a federal minimum wage increase to $10.10 per hour within two years. A discharge petition is a procedural maneuver that allows the minority party to force a vote on the House floor.

The event will “call on Congress...

Op-Ed By Gina Schaefer
Capital Gazette (Annapolis), Feb 25, 2014

It didn’t take long after my husband and I opened our first hardware store in 2003 for people to start coming in and asking us to open in their neighborhood, too.

By 2009, we had grown to six Ace Hardware stores in Baltimore and Washington, D.C., with our seventh store opening in 2010 in Takoma Park. The next year, Old Takoma Ace Hardware was one of four stores, out of 4,500 locally-owned and operated Ace Hardware stores worldwide, to win the “Coolest Hardware Store” award...

Letter to the Editor By David Borris
Daily Herald (IL), 2/22/2014

A Feb. 12 letter in the Daily Herald criticized Sen. Dick Durbin, President Obama and Gov. Pat Quinn for supporting a minimum-wage increase, claiming that doing so will be bad for business. I’m the owner of a thriving small business with 25 full-time and 80 part-time and seasonal workers. I pay all of my employees a living wage, and I’m here to tell you that letter writer is wrong.

The current bill in Congress will raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour over...

By Amanda Yeager
Baltimore Sun and Howard County Times, February 20, 2014

Brian England and Pete Mangione both own businesses that have been Howard County institutions for three decades. They both say they care deeply about employees. But when it comes to whether or not state legislators should raise the minimum wage, they — like many other business leaders in Maryland — don't see eye to eye.

A state bill seeking to raise the minimum wage in Maryland for the first time since 2009, from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour by 2016, has backing...

By Diana Reese
Washington Post, Feb 20, 2014

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Two small business owners who decided it was only fair to pay their employees more than the minimum wage were given “Bacon Awards” in a sidewalk ceremony Wednesday by Organizing for Action – Missouri, a nonpartisan social advocacy group. Supporters gathered in Kansas City’s charming Brookside neighborhood to honor Pam Hausner, owner of Big Vision Media Group, a small marketing agency and certified B corporation, and Jeremy Neff, who with his wife Stacy owns One More Cup, a socially-conscious coffee shop. Both were presented with...

By Eric Morath, Damian Paletta and Carol E. Lee
Wall Street Journal, Feb 20, 2014

... Some business owners say they favor a wage increase. David Bolotsky, chief executive at Uncommon Goods, a Brooklyn, N.Y., online retailer, said boosting the minimum wage would give consumers more money to spend. He backs a proposal advanced by Democrats in Congress that ties future increases to inflation. "That gives me certainty, and that's most important when running a business," he said.

The U.S. government has had a minimum wage since 1938, and it has been raised close to...

Mark Reardon Show
CBS KMOX St. Louis, Feb 19, 2014

Lew Prince, owner of Vintage Vinyl and The Show Me Institute’s David Stokes and  discuss CBO report and minimum wage.

Listen to Interview with Lew Prince

By Randy Ludlow
The Columbus Dispatch, Feb 19, 2014

... [Secretary of Labor Thomas] Perez appeared yesterday with Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Columbus, and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, to support legislation to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour over three years. Ohio’s minimum wage, set higher than the federal standard because of a 2006 ballot initiative, is $7.95 an hour, with tipped workers entitled to $3.98 an hour. ...

The federal officials spoke with reporters at Brothers Drake Meadery & Bar on E. 5th Avenue, where the owners pay their wait and bartending...

Letter to Editor by Jack Kinstlinger
Baltimore Sun, February 17, 2014

As a retired businessman with 30 years experience as founder and CEO of one of Maryland's largest engineering companies, I am upset that the business community appears to have come together to oppose a reasonable and gradual increase in the state's minimum wage ("O'Malley, skeptics spar over minimum wage," Feb. 11).

Contrary to claims by the business community that an increase will hurt business, the record of states that have raised their minimum wages clearly demonstrates the opposite: That raising the minimum wage improves workers' productivity...

Op-Ed By Norman W. Gorin
Milford Daily News (MA), February 16. 2014

The minimum wage is now at center stage both nationally and in Massachusetts, and the time for needed reform has come. The president made a compelling case to raise the wage in his State of the Union address, and here in Massachusetts, the State Senate passed a bill which will soon be taken up by the House.

Some business owners have expressed a fear that raising the minimum wage will slow job growth and hurt the economy, but that's not the case. In...

CBS Baltimore, Feb 15, 2014

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WJZ) — Meghan McCorkell reporting

... Charmington’s in Charles Village has been brewing up business for more than three years. Since the beginning, owner Amanda Rothschild has paid employees above the state minimum wage.

“We actually lowered our costs by paying them more and having employees want to stay for a year or two years,” she said.

Now she’s speaking out in favor of a new bill in the General Assembly that would raise the minimum wage in Maryland from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 by 2016. ...

[T]he...

By Emily Cohn
Huffington Post, 2/13/14

... Executive pay has gotten so out of hand, former AT&T Broadband CEO Leo Hindery told HuffPost Live on Thursday, that it has caused a "structural breakdown of the meritocracy of our nation." Hindery pointed out that, even as CEO pay has skyrocketed in recent decades, it has not "trickled down" to workers, who must increasingly borrow money to finance their spending. That dynamic helped set the stage for the most recent recession and helps explain today's sluggish recovery.

Fortune 500 CEOs now make more than 200 times what their...