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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 said, is one of four “so-called red states” — the others are Alaska, Arkansas and South Dakota — that approved measures last fall to raise the minimum wage, which he described as “historically a bipartisan issue.” ...

At a roundtable of Nebraska state and local lawmakers, business owners and community groups that supported the measure, Perez called the effort — which collected 135,000 signatures in seven weeks — an example of “Cornhusker common sense.”

“I think this is a remarkable story of success,” he told the assembly, which was hosted by Omaha’s Lozier Corp. Earlier in the day, Perez toured the company’s Omaha manufacturing plant, where starting wages are $14.54 an hour and there are “clear pathways to move up,” Perez tweeted. The Omaha-based company manufactures store fixtures to retailers across the globe, including Walmart, Target, Family Dollar, Hy-Vee and Scheels. ...

Linda and Dave Titterington, co-owners of Wild Bird Habitat Stores in Lincoln and Omaha, small-business owners who supported the minimum wage measure, told the roundtable that they have been paying employees more than the minimum wage for several years.

“We saw nothing but benefits. You pay employees a living wage and they’re more dedicated, they’re more productive, happier,” Dave Titterington said.

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