By Gil Smart
Lancaster Online, Aug 19, 2015

... If the key to rising out of poverty is a job that pays a decent wage, where are city residents to find that in Lancaster? Don’t get me wrong – there are some places. The Lancaster Food Company is one (disclaimer: I know co-founder Charlie Crystle, but that’s irrelevant to this point, as stated on the company’s web site):

We feel strongly about reducing poverty in the U.S., and feel we can do our part here in Lancaster by paying better than living wages, and...

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 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...