Home Channel News, April 7, 2014

The continuing debate over the minimum wage law is one that disproportionately affects retailers. That doesn't mean all retailers see it the same way.

Leading the charge against federal raises is the National Retail Federation. The advocacy group has published statement after statement urging Congress to stand down to the push for higher wages. ...

Gina Schaefer, the owner of nine Ace Hardware stores in the D.C. metro area took a stand at Capitol Hill in favor of raising the federal minimum wage. Schaefer spoke at an April 3...

By Natalie Wright, Maria Rigou, Jon Price
Washtenaw Voice, Washtenaw Community College (MI), April 7, 2014

... During his visit to the University of Michigan last week, Obama addressed an audience of more than a thousand U-M students and other special guests, speaking to them with an air of cool approachability. But before addressing wide-ranging issues from minimum wage, partisan politics, immigration reform, and student loans to economic and social inequalities, Obama spoke to the students about his failed “March Madness” bracket – and his lunch at Zingerman’s Deli. ...

Why Zingerman’s?

Obama has frequented...

By Jeremy Allen
MLive Michigan, April 6, 2014

Ray Gholston works hard to earn his paychecks. He’s a full-time clerk at a retail store on the west side of Ann Arbor, where he helps keep the store organized and checks customers out at the register all while making $7.40 per hour.

He’s also homeless and has been since November, spending his nights – and some off days – at the Delonis Center in downtown Ann Arbor. Gholston said that his low-wage job doesn’t afford him the ability to pay rent anywhere in Ann Arbor or close...

By Sharyn Jackson
Des Moines Register, April 5, 2014

Raising the minimum wage will give workers more money to spend at local businesses, boosting profitability and the economy, U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez said Saturday in Des Moines.

Perez visited Raygun, a T-shirt shop and screen printing company in Des Moines' East Village, along with Iowa Democrats U.S. Senator Tom Harkin, U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley, and state Sen. Jack Hatch, to tour the facility and campaign for raising the minimum wage. ...

[Mike] Draper said he pays his employees above the current $7.25...

By Erich Wagner
Alexandria Times (VA), April 4, 2014

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) visited the Arlandria branch of MOM’s Organic Market on Monday to laud the company’s practice of paying workers above the federal minimum wage.

Kaine toured the Mount Vernon Avenue store with MOM’s CEO Scott Nash in advance of heated debate in Congress this week over a bill raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour in the next several years. He said that MOM’s shows opponents and other companies that raising the wage is not a so-called “job killer.”...

DOL News, April 3, 2014

A 10-state bus tour campaign to increase the minimum wage came to a close April 3 in our nation's capital. The bus tour, led by Americans United for Change, highlighted the stories of workers throughout the country who are struggling to put food on the table and buy medicine for their children. U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez joined the April 3 event, where Ruben Jones, a full-time cook at a restaurant, had the crowd in tears when he told his story about how he has two children and...

By Jessica Webster, Ann Arbor News
MLive Michigan, April 3, 2014

Sometimes a hunch pays off. When you're the food and dining reporter at the local newspaper, you might find yourself one of the only people left in the office on the day when the President of the United States is in town. ... And at some point, you might just decide that you should grab a camera and head over to Zingerman's Deli, just in case the president had a craving for a Reuben. ...

After all, the president - or a member of his staff...

By Chad Livengood
Detroit News, April 2, 2014

Ann Arbor — The personal sometimes becomes the political when it involves the nation’s commander in chief. While in town to give a speech to promote a ... hike in the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, President Barack Obama, U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, and the president’s 20-vehicle motorcade stopped at Zingerman’s Deli just before 1:30 p.m.

Zingerman’s co-owner Paul Saginaw is a member of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage and has signed a petition supporting an increase in the minimum wage.  Zingerman’s also pays...

By Aamer Mahdani
USA Today, April 2, 2014

With Congress expected to soon begin debating whether to lift the minimum wage, President Obama on Wednesday said lawmakers must choose between giving Americans "the shaft" or "a raise." ...

Obama traveled to the Ann Arbor campus of the University of Michigan for his latest push on the issue.

In the coming days, the Senate is likely to debate a plan by Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin that would gradually lift today's minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to $10.10 by 2016. Democrats will need 60 Senate votes...

By Eric Morath
Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2014

For lunch Wednesday, President Barack Obama munched on a reuben sandwich that would require shelling out the equivalent of two hours of work at the federal minimum wage of $7.25. The president used the stop at the Zingerman’s Delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Mich., to stump for raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. At that increased rate, a minimum wage worker could buy the same reuben ...  with 88 minutes worth of earnings. ...

Mr. Obama likely stopped at the popular deli just north of the...

By Justin Sink
The Hill, April 2, 2014

President Obama on Wednesday appealed to Congress to raise the minimum wage, telling lawmakers they had a "clear choice" to make as the Senate readied debate on his proposal to hike hourly wages to $10.10 per hour. "You can give America the shaft or you can give it a raise," Obama said during the speech on the University of Michigan campus in Ann Arbor.

"Politically, you would think people would rush to do this," Obama said during the campaign-style tour through Michigan. "Nearly three in four Americans support...

By Zlati Mayer and David Jesse
Detroit Free Press, April 2, 2014

On his way to his speech Wednesday at the University of Michigan, President Barack Obama had his motorcade stop off at Ann Arbor’s Zingerman’s Deli for a working lunch.

The president spent about an hour at the delicatessen feasting on one of its famous Reuben sandwiches and chatting with three workers he had invited to lunch to talk about the topic that’s high on his agenda these days — raising the federal minimum wage. ...

Obama told them the reason they were at...

Michigan Radio, "Stateside," April 2, 2014

President Barack Obama was in Ann Arbor today, pushing the Fair Minimum Wage Act. ... Back here in Michigan, the minimum wage is $7.40 an hour – though groups are working to gather petition signatures to boost the state's minimum wage. ...

Paul Saginaw is co-founder of Zingerman's Delicatessen in Ann Arbor. He has been pushing to increase the minimum wage and he is already committed to paying Zingerman's workers above the minimum wage.

We talk to Saginaw about the president's push for raising the minimum wage.

Listen Here

By  Kate Abbey-Lambertz
Huffington Post, April 2, 2014

The president sure knows how to pick a lunch place. President Barack Obama traveled to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor Wednesday to speak about raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour. But first, he stopped at one of the city's (and Michigan's, and possibly the world's) best eateries: Zingerman's Deli, where the sandwiches are as good as the owner's thoughts on paying his workers. ...

But it's not just their sandwiches that Zingerman's deserves credit for. During the meal, Obama met with...

By Jeremy Allen
Mlive, April 2, 2014

When President Barack Obama spoke on the University of Michigan's campus on Wednesday, April 2, he was the charismatic, crowd-pleasing politician that got him twice elected to lead the country. ... But it was his message – the need to increase the federal minimum wage to $10.10 for millions of working poor – that resonated most with the 1,400 people packed inside of Michigan’s Intramural Sports Building. ...

Obama pointed out national employers such as Costco and the Gap, as both companies have base pay rates that far exceed...