iBerkshires, June 26, 2014

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Minimum wage workers just got a boost in Massachusetts. Gov. Deval Patrick on Thursday signed a bill making the state's minimum wage the highest in the nation, raising it from the current $8 to $11 over the next several years.

According to data from the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, the hike will directly affect some 11,000 workers in the greater Pittsfield area and indirectly another 2,600, or about 27 percent of wage earners. ...

Opponents have said the increase would negatively impact business and drive up consumer costs...

By Rebecca Hiscott
Huffington Post, June 26, 2014

Read more about Ikea, Gap, Costco, In-N-Out Burger, Shake Shack, Ben & Jerry's, Whole Foods 

Op-Ed by John Buell
Portland Press Herald, June 26, 2014

SOUTHWEST HARBOR — ... Economists like to explain changes in salaries for baseball players, corporate CEOs and hedge fund managers by citing and validating “market forces” and supply and demand. ...

Wal-Mart wages are determined by supply and demand, but once again the question is who is shaping and gaining leverage in this market. Wal-Mart has its own version of the reserve clause. Through an aggressive competitive strategy, it has cornered the retail market – especially in many rural communities. Thus, it limits options in the...

As millions of low-wage workers—many of them in the food industry—wait for a federal minimum wage hike, cities and states are raising wages.

By Steve Holt
Take Part, June 25, 2014

...President Obama made a rather chaotic trip to Chipotle for lunch the other day...to highlight the chain's pay practices-starting wages for line workers average $10.50 an hour ...

Malia and Sasha Obama's summer jobs appear to be wrapped up in the push for a higher federal minimum wage too, judging by comments Michelle Obama made in a recent interview with Parade. When asked whether she’d...

10 employers, large and small, make the business case for raising the US minimum wage

By Mary Babic
Oxfam America, The Politics of Poverty blog, June 23, 2014

Maybe you’ve heard this one before: Raising the US minimum wage would harm our economy by placing too much of a burden on business owners, especially small-business owners. It sounds convincing. But it’s just not true.

In fact raising the wage is actually good for business, and for our economy. Increasing the federal minimum wage to $10.10 would pump $32 billion in additional income into the economy (creating...

By Dennis Sadowski
Catholic News Service, 6/19/2014

America: The National Catholic Review, Boston Pilot, Catholic Philly.com, Catholic Sentinel, Catholic Courier, The Message, more

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- While Congress has stalled on adopting an increase in the federal minimum wage, steps are being taken across the country to boost the income of low-wage workers. From Massachusetts and Vermont to Seattle and San Francisco, state legislators and city councils have either acted on or are negotiating minimum wage hikes. ...

Meanwhile, a new report from Oxfam America called for Congress to end the gridlock...

Hourly wage would be highest in nation if signed by Governor Deval Patrick

By Ron Ruggless
Nation's Restaurant News, June 18, 2014

The Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a bill Wednesday that would raise the state’s $8 hourly minimum wage to $11 per hour by 2017. After brief debate, the House of Representatives approved the measure 124-24, following the Senate vote that approved the hike last week 35-4. The bill goes back to both chambers for a procedural vote before heading to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s desk. ...

Holly Sklar, director of Boston-based Business for a Fair...

Fitchburg Sentinel & Enterprise, 06/16/14

... "Massachusetts led the nation passing the first state minimum wage a century ago in June 1912, and with passage of an $11 state minimum wage ... will be leading the nation again with a wage floor that is good for business, good for customers and good for our economy."

- Holly Sklar, director of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage.

Read more

By Bob Katzen
Somerville News Weekly, June 14, 2014, Beacon Hill Roll Call Volume 39 -Report No. 24 June 9-13, 2014

... QUOTABLE QUOTES ...

“Massachusetts led the nation passing the first state minimum wage a century ago in June 1912, and with passage of an $11 state minimum wage … will be leading the nation again with a wage floor that is good for business, good for customers and good for our economy.”

Holly Sklar, Director of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage.

Read more

Copyright 2014 Beacon Hill Roll Call

By Jessica Leber Fast Company, June 13, 2014

One in five workers would benefit from a higher minimum wage - but businesses could also see a boost

What is it like to live on minimum wage in America? It’s never been fun, but it’s getting harder and harder as costs of living rise around the nation. ... Oxfam’s breakdown by Congressional district show that, on average, one in five workers would benefit from an increased minimum wage, or 25 million people--nearly 14 million of whom are women. ...

RAISING MINIMUM WAGE IS ACTUALLY GOOD FOR BUSINESSES...

By Jordan Graham and Matt Stout
Boston Herald, June 13, 2014

Top House and Senate negotiators struck a deal Wednesday to raise the current $8 per hour minimum wage to $11 per hour by 2017, and the Senate quickly passed it yesterday on a 35-4 vote. The bill does not include a Senate proposal that would have tied the hike to inflation. And it goes beyond a House proposal for a $10.50 per hour wage, without automatic increases for inflation. The House is expected to vote on the compromise bill next week. ...

Business for a...

By Morgan Rousseau
Metro, June 12, 2014

... The Massachusetts Senate voted 35-4 Thursday to pass legislation that will raise the minimum wage in three increments from $8 an hour to $11 an hour. The hourly minimum wage would go to $9 on Jan. 1, 2015, to $10 the following new year, and finally to $11 on Jan. 1, 2017. The measure does not include a provision for future annual increases to keep up with inflation.

Massachusetts members of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, a Boston-based network of business owners and executives, commended the hike, which many...

By Sarah Max
New York Times, June 11, 2014

In 2002, Sherry Stewart Deutschmann quit her six-figure sales job at a Nashville company, cashed in her 401(k) and started a competing business. ... Ms. Deutschmann believed she could build a better company by building a better company culture. If employees had more reason to care, she believed, it would translate to better performance.

Her business, LetterLogic, specializes in printing and mailing statements, invoices and letters, including personal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or Hipaa, information. Today it has $30 million in annual revenue and no...

Op-Ed By David Bolotsky
New York Daily News, June 9, 2014

Small business owners like myself across New York have something to cheer about following Gov. Cuomo’s recent pledge to raise the minimum wage to $10.10, index it to inflation, and allow localities to set their wage floors above the state level.

Raising the minimum wage is really a matter of fairness for small business owners, who overwhelmingly pay above the minimum wage already, yet are forced to compete with large out-of-state corporations that choose to pay rock-bottom wages while making billions in profits each...

By Bob Bestler
Myrtle Beach Sun News, May 30, 2014

... I seldom enter Myrtle Beach, for golf or otherwise, without stopping at Costco to get one thing or another, from jars of olives for my martinis to boxes of Keurig coffee or a heavily discounted best-selling book. ...

In a job satisfaction survey by the job site Glassdoor, Costco ranked second only to Google in employee satisfaction, ahead of such multi-billion-dollar high-tech giants as Facebook, Monsanto and Verizon.

Costco CEO Craig Jelineck supports legislation raising the federal minimum wage from its current $7.25 an hour...