By Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post, January 15, 2015

President Obama signed a presidential memorandum Thursday directing agencies to allow federal workers to take six weeks of advanced paid sick leave to care for a new child or ill family members. The move came as Obama also called on Congress to expand these benefits further by passing the Healthy Families Act, which would grant Americans seven days a year of paid sick time.

To highlight the importance of paid leave, Obama met Tuesday afternoon with three women in Charmington's, a cafe in Baltimore City whose owners are proponents...

By Nedra Pickler and Darlene Superville
Associated Press (AP), January 15, 2015

BALTIMORE (AP) — President Barack Obama launched a fresh push Thursday to bring paid sick and family leave to working parents and other private-sector employees as the White House unveiled proposals that could benefit tens of millions of people. ... "Forty-three million Americans do not get paid sick leave," Obama said after a lunchtime discussion about juggling work and family with a group of women at a Baltimore cafe that offers paid sick leave to its small workforce. "It's a pretty astonishing statistic."

By David Hudson
White House Blog, January 15, 2015

Earlier today, President Obama took a quick trip to Charmington's Café in North Baltimore, Maryland to talk with three women -- Amanda, Vika, and Mary -- before he announced new steps his Administration is taking to help working families across the country.

As the President noted at the café today, 43 million Americans still don't get paid sick leave. "That means that no matter how sick they are, or how sick a family member is, they may find themselves having to choose to be able...

Reuters, Jan 15, 2015

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By Ian Duncan and Christi Parsons
Baltimore Sun, Jan 15, 2015

Story Includes VIDEO

President Barack Obama surprised lunchtime diners at a Baltimore cafe Thursday with an unannounced stop to promote a proposal to guarantee paid sick leave for millions more American workers. After lunch at Charmington's in Remington, the president said families should not have to choose between their health and a paycheck.

In a launch that recalled his campaign last year to raise the minimum wage, he signed an order Thursday to give six weeks of paid maternity or paternity leave to federal...

By Bruce Alpert
Times-Picayune, January 15, 2015

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama made the case for mandatory paid sick leave for most employees by recounting his luncheon conversation Thursday with three women, including the operator of a Baltimore, Md., coffee shop and a school nurse. The president met the women over lunch at Baltimore's Charmington's coffee shop and cafe, including Amanda Rothchild, co-owner and managing partner of Charmington's and Mary Stein, a mother of two and a school nurse.

Rothchild, the president said, provides her employees with paid sick leave, and pays them more than the...

By Ed Mahon
York Daily Record (PA), Jan 15, 2015

Tom Wolf, who was elected governor in November, wants to raise the minimum wage in Pennsylvania. Here are five things to know about the issue.

1. Pennsylvania's minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.

That's the same rate as the federal minimum wage. Nationwide, 29 states have a minimum wage above the federal level, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

2. Wolf says raising the minimum wage would create jobs.

Wolf's "Fresh Start" policy plan, released in February 2014, says raising the minimum wage to...

Editorial
Independent Newspapers (Northeast Independent, South County Independent, RI), January 8, 2015

As of Jan. 1, the state’s minimum wage is $9 per hour, up from $8. Rhode Island joined 20 other states in boosting the minimum wage for workers at the bottom, including Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont. It’s worth noting the federal minimum wage is just $7.25 per hour.

At $7.25 per hour, a 40-hour-per-week employee’s gross income totals about $15,000 per year; at $9 per hour, the gross total is $18,720 annually. Those working minimum-wage jobs in Rhode Island – service sector positions...

By Stephen Herzenberg, executive director of the Keystone Research Center
BCTV (Berks County, PA) January 7, 2015

Here's our suggestion for a New Year's Resolution PA lawmakers should make along with losing weight and spending more time with the family: increasing the Pennsylvania minimum wage. As detailed in our end-of year press release, 20 states and the District of Columbia will raise their minimum wages tomorrow but Pennsylvania will not.

We documented in the 2014 State of Working Pennsylvania (SWPA), there is a desperate need for a minimum-wage increase. As of 2013, nearly one in five...

By J.D. Harrison
Washington Post, January 5, 2015

Maryland’s minimum wage was one of many that increased at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, in the first of a series of raises that will eventually push the state’s pay floor above $10 an hour. Under legislation approved last summer, Maryland’s minimum hourly rate increased from $7.25 to $8.00 on the first of the year, and it will increase again to $8.25 in July. The minimum will tick up several more times over the next three years, reaching $10.10 in 2018.

One of the...

By Sarah Ruppenthal
Maui News, Jan 3, 2015

For an estimated 37,000 workers across the state, 2015 brings new change - 50 cents to be exact - as Hawaii's minimum wage increased from $7.25 to $7.75 per hour on New Year's Day. And that's just the first step in an incremental, four-step wage increase signed into law by Gov. Neil Abercrombie in May. Hawaii is now inching toward a $10.10 hourly minimum wage, which will take effect Jan. 1, 2018. In the interim, the state's minimum wage is scheduled to increase to $8.50 an hour...

By J.D. Harrison
Washington Post, January 2, 2015

... On Small Business asked entrepreneurs and small employers from around the country to share with us the one headline they would most like to see coming out of the nation’s capital this year, be it from Congress, the White House, the Small Business Administration, or any other corner of Washington. Here’s what they had to say. ...

Paul Saginaw, co-owner and founding partner at Zingerman’s Community of Businesses, which runs a delicatessen, restaurant, creamery, and several other ventures in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Headline: Congress amends constitution...

By Christine Kern
Hospitality Leader, Jan 2, 2015

Will wage hike have a detrimental effect on restaurant owners?

The minimum wage is set to get a boost in 21 states during 2015, in large part due to the national movement to boost the earnings of low-paid workers, according to CNBC News. ...

But while many restaurant owners worry about how they will cover the added expenses driven by the wage hikes, not all are opposed to the change.

One restaurant owner has written in favor of the minimum wage hike. In a blog post...

KRWG TV/FM, NPR Public Media for Southwestern New Mexico and Far West Texas, Jan 1, 2015

Las Cruces starts the new year with a new minimum wage.  The wage increases by 90 cents today...going from the state-mandated $7.50 an hour to $8.40.  It’s the first of three planned increases, which should result in a $10.10 minimum wage in 2019. ...

In a column that appeared this week in the Las Cruces Sun News and in newspapers nationwide, Chris Sommers wrote about his experience increasing his lowest paid employees to $10.10 an hour last spring.  The...

By Kate Rogers
CNBC, Dec 31, 2014

Hourly wage workers around the country are cheering hikes in their pay this new year, with 21 states raising the wage in 2015 after moves by state legislatures and voter approval during midterm elections. Some of the pay increases in the new year also reflect annual cost of living increases by individual states. ...

More action on wage increases is expected in states and cities, and the new Congress will likely take up the issue in 2015, says Holly Sklar, chief executive of Business for a Fair Minimum...