By Dan Ritter
Wall St. Cheat Sheet, Feb 4, 2014

America may have one of the strongest economies in the world, but it is still highly dysfunctional. Those who participate in it know that it is easy to become trapped by debt, that it is easy to become stuck in a low-paying job with stagnant wages, and that it is easy to become a pessimist about personal financial situations and the economic outlook at large. ...

How to address this problem has been the subject of an enormous amount of debate.... Because of the stagnant...

By Ted Griggs and Timothy Boone
Baton Rouge Advocate, February 3, 2014

Lifting federal contract workers’ minimum wage to $10.10 per hour, as President Barack Obama proposes, isn’t expected to affect contractors very much, but extending that pay to workers across the board would be big, especially in Louisiana where a high percentage of workers make minimum wage or less. Hundreds of thousands of Louisiana residents will benefit and that could boost the state’s tax revenue, said Jan Moller, director of Louisiana Budget Project. ...

Sarah Covert, who owns Sarah the Pet Sitter in New Orleans, said...

Wall Street Journal, Feb 3, 2014

With the minimum wage shaping up to be one of the hottest issues to watch in 2014, The Wall Street Journal’s Damian Paletta discusses the issue with a group of entrepreneurs and economic experts in this recent, live Q&A.

Panelists include Gina Schaefer, owner of “A Few Cool Hardware Stores,"  David Neumark, professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine; John Schmitt, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research; and Casey Lakey, owner and general manager of Trainer’s Club gym.

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ABC News, WLS-TV Chicago, February 2, 2014

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin says it's time for the state and the country to have a "serious discussion" about raising the minimum wage. ... He was joined by minimum wage employees and a Chicago-area business owner who explained why he thinks he's able to retain employees.

"Our defacto minimum wage right now is $10 an hour, and we're talking about getting that up to $11.50 because we recognize how important it is that when people come to work they feel part of the community that we're talking about, they feel...

By E.J. Olsen, Jan 31, 2014

U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, State Rep. Adam Zemke, D-Ann Arbor, and State Rep. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor met with Zingerman’s Deli staff and Ann Arbor business owners at the Deli yesterday afternoon to discuss proposed increases in the state and federal minimum wage. The Congressional Representatives chose to meet at Zingerman’s following a recent trip by Paul Saginaw to Washington D.C., where he, along with other national business leaders, met with U.S. Secretary of Labor, Thomas Perez. ...

Also present to express their support for the proposed legislation were...

By Josh Hicks
Washington Post, January 30, 2014

Labor Secretary Thomas Perez visited a locally-owned Ace Hardware in the nation’s capital on Thursday morning to push for an increase in the federal minimum wage. ...

The hardware store, located in the Mt. Vernon Square neighborhood, pays its employees at least $10 an hour. The federal minimum wage is $7.25, while the D.C. rate is $8.25.

Perez described the shop’s owner, Gina Schaefer, as a “remarkably visionary business owner,” saying she understands that “paying folks a fair wage is the essence of growing a business.” He...

By Gina Schaefer
Work In Progress, Dept of Labor Blog, Jan 30, 2014

Gina Schaefer, is the owner of A Few Cool Hardware Stores, a group of nine Ace Hardware stores in Washington, D.C., and Maryland.

As a small business owner, I am a firm believer that raising the minimum wage is the right thing to do. It will mean more money in the hands of those who need it, allowing them to pay for daily necessities without sacrificing their other basic needs. And increased wages means more money in peoples’ pockets that they then...

By Melinda Henneberger
Washington Post,  January 30, 2014

The cameras were rolling as Labor Secretary Thomas Perez asked Daniel Whitney how he likes his job at Ace Hardware in the Mount Vernon Square area, where all employees are paid more than the minimum wage. If you guessed that Whitney’s response was positive, you win a free key. ... Sales associates in green vests and big smiles showed Perez how to carve a key, mix a quart of paint and cut a piece of Plexiglas. But the real point of the visit to the locally owned retailer was to...

By Thomas E. Perez, US Secretary of Labor
Huffington Post, Jan 30, 2014

It's time to give America a raise. ... Forward-looking companies get that this makes smart business sense. That's why the president and I visited a Costco store in Lanham, Md., the morning after his speech. Costco pays their workers good wages with benefits, while selling good products at competitive prices and remaining quite profitable. ...

But they're not the only company following this model. I just got back from a visit to the 5th Street Ace Hardware store in Washington, where all...

By Jeremy Allen
MLive (MI), Jan 30, 2014

U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, State Rep. Adam Zemke, D-Ann Arbor, and State Rep. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, have scheduled a 3:30 p.m. “late lunch” at Zingerman’s Deli on Detroit Street in Ann Arbor to talk about Saginaw’s recent trip to Washington D.C., and the impacts of increased wages for low earners.

During Saginaw’s trip, he and several other business owners across the country met with the U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez to lobby for an increase in the national minimum from $7.25 per hour to...

By K.C. Wassman
Michigan Daily, January 30, 2014

Last week, Zingerman’s co-owner Paul Saginaw visited Washington, D.C. to lobby Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez for an increase in minimum wage. But on Thursday, D.C. came to Zingerman’s.

Rep. John Dingell (D–Mich.), joined by state Rep. Jeff Irwin (D–Ann Arbor) and state Rep. Adam Zemke (D–Ann Arbor), ate a late lunch with Zingerman’s employees and local business owners to discuss actions on the federal and state level to raise the minimum wage. Dingell, who is a co-sponsor of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, said a local...

Central Premise
Federal Reserve System bloggers, Jan 30, 2014

Yesterday, someone sent me a link to Business for a Fair Minimum Wage. I like counterintuitive stories of all sorts, and Business for a Fair Minimum Wage seemed to fit the category. ...

The statement from Business for a Fair Minimum Wage has some of the same themes:

“As business owners and executives, we support raising the federal minimum wage to strengthen our economy. …

“Raising the minimum wage makes good business sense. …

“A recent national poll shows that 67 percent of small business owners...

By Shoham Geva
Michigan Daily, Jan 30, 2014

Five community groups and organizations announced Monday the formation of a new ballot committee, Raise Michigan, which will explore the feasibility of a November ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage in the state. ... In its initial announcement, Raise Michigan outlined three main goals for its campaign: raising the minimum wage from its current rate of $7.40 per hour to a figure between $9 and $10 per hour, raising the minimum wage for restaurant servers and tying the minimum wage to the inflation index. ...

Democratic gubernatorial candidate...

By Patrick Clark
Bloomberg BusinessWeek, January 29, 2014

President Obama mentioned small business three times in his State of the Union Address last night, touting his administration’s record of promoting small business lending and calling for better tools to help business owners sell in foreign markets. He also sent a shout out to John Soranno, a Minneapolis pizzeria owner who recently gave employees a raise to $10 an hour. To judge by the response of small business advocacy groups, that wasn’t enough. ...

Chicago-area caterer David Borris from the left-leaning Main Street Alliance said raising the minimum wage would...