Letter to Editor by Jack Kinstlinger
Baltimore Sun, February 17, 2014

As a retired businessman with 30 years experience as founder and CEO of one of Maryland's largest engineering companies, I am upset that the business community appears to have come together to oppose a reasonable and gradual increase in the state's minimum wage ("O'Malley, skeptics spar over minimum wage," Feb. 11).

Contrary to claims by the business community that an increase will hurt business, the record of states that have raised their minimum wages clearly demonstrates the opposite: That raising the minimum wage improves workers' productivity...

Op-Ed By Norman W. Gorin
Milford Daily News (MA), February 16. 2014

The minimum wage is now at center stage both nationally and in Massachusetts, and the time for needed reform has come. The president made a compelling case to raise the wage in his State of the Union address, and here in Massachusetts, the State Senate passed a bill which will soon be taken up by the House.

Some business owners have expressed a fear that raising the minimum wage will slow job growth and hurt the economy, but that's not the case. In...

CBS Baltimore, Feb 15, 2014

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WJZ) — Meghan McCorkell reporting

... Charmington’s in Charles Village has been brewing up business for more than three years. Since the beginning, owner Amanda Rothschild has paid employees above the state minimum wage.

“We actually lowered our costs by paying them more and having employees want to stay for a year or two years,” she said.

Now she’s speaking out in favor of a new bill in the General Assembly that would raise the minimum wage in Maryland from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 by 2016. ...

[T]he...

By Emily Cohn
Huffington Post, 2/13/14

... Executive pay has gotten so out of hand, former AT&T Broadband CEO Leo Hindery told HuffPost Live on Thursday, that it has caused a "structural breakdown of the meritocracy of our nation." Hindery pointed out that, even as CEO pay has skyrocketed in recent decades, it has not "trickled down" to workers, who must increasingly borrow money to finance their spending. That dynamic helped set the stage for the most recent recession and helps explain today's sluggish recovery.

Fortune 500 CEOs now make more than 200 times what their...

By Mark Koba, Senior Editor
CNBC, Feb 12, 2014

After eight years of working for $9 an hour at the Pentagon Courtyard cafe, Jerome Hardy will likely get a raise. That's because President Obama is signing an executive order Wednesday raising the hourly minimum wage for federally contracted workers to $10.10. ... "This will definitely help me out financially," said the 52-year-old Hardy, who works as a chef and lives with his parents near Capitol Hill. "I live paycheck to paycheck, and It's been hard to survive on $9 an hour." ...

The executive order to raise...

Fox News Latino, Feb 12, 2014

President Barack Obama is raising the minimum wage for federal contractors from $7.25 to $10.10. ... Obama is also calling on Congress to pass Democratic legislation to raise wages for all workers to $10.10. ...

There has been fierce disagreement over the effects of the hike. An increase would certainly be welcome among Hispanics workers, who earn the minimum wage or below in disproportionate numbers. ...

But when California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a $2 per hour hike in the state’s minimum wage last September, a number of...

Robin Young
WBUR/NPR, Here & Now, Feb 12, 2014

President Obama is signing an executive order today that will raise the minimum wage for workers under new federal contracts. ... Labor Secretary Thomas Perez has been called the President's ambassador on raising the minimum wage .... He was supposed to be in Cambridge, MA today to visit the store Cambridge Naturals but today's executive order signing keeps him in Washington …

Perez: "And the small business owners that I've spoken to including people in Cambridge and elsewhere have said when you pay your workers a fair...

By Holden Wilen
Montgomery County Sentinel, February 12, 2014

ANNAPOLIS – ... There were plenty of voices who both supported and opposed the minimum wage increase with Maryland officials, business owners, and residents lined up to testify about the proposal at a House of Delegates committee hearing Tuesday. ...

Amanda Rothschild, owner of Charmington’s Café in Baltimore, was one of several business owners to support the bill. Lower turnover and higher employee loyalty, she said, helps her business bring in more money.

“A higher minimum wage benefits my business and our local economy. Raising and indexing the...

By Robert Lang and Associated Press
WBAL News, Maryland, Feb 11, 2014

... Gov. Martin O'Malley told a House committee Tuesday that a higher minimum wage would strengthen the middle class and cause economic growth. He noted that past minimum wage increases have benefited the economy. "When we raised the minimum wage...there was no cataclysmic repercussions where McDonald's and Wal-Mart shuttered their doors and moved to Virginia," O'Malley told lawmakers. ...

Amanda Rothschild, who owns Charmington's Cafe in Charles Village in Baltimore City testified in favor of the bill, noting it creates a more stable work force...

By Megan Brockett
Capital News Service, Feb 11, 2014

Business owners, low-wage workers, economists and community leaders crowded into an overflowing House committee room Tuesday to offer testimony alongside Gov. Martin O’Malley on a handful of proposals seeking to change Maryland’s minimum wage. ... More than 100 witnesses signed up to testify both in support and opposition of a minimum wage increase, lining the walls of the committee room early on and trickling into an overflow room set up down the hall. ...

Other supporters, like Charmington’s Cafe owner Amanda Rothschild, said that a minimum wage...

By Dave Jamieson
Huffington Post, Feb 11, 2014

WASHINGTON -- On a recent afternoon, Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez found himself getting a five-minute tutorial in paint-mixing at an Ace Hardware store in downtown Washington, D.C. The crash course wasn't for any personal home-improvement purposes. Now seven months into his post, Perez is playing the role of ambassador for a raise to the federal minimum wage ... "How did I do?" Perez asked his tutor, Christina Amaya, as he pulled a quart of purple paint out of the mixer.

Amaya earns $13 per hour as an...

By Frederick Reese
Mint Press News, February 10, 2014 

… Per the Huffington Post, half of Wal-Mart’s hourly associates in the U.S. make less than $10 per hour, with most who make more having been noted for extraordinary service.

“I pay low wages. I can take advantage of that. We’re going to be successful, but the basis is a very low-wage, low-benefit model of employment,” Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart once said. ...

MintPress conducted a study in an attempt to find evidence that would support a base increase in salary for the nation’s...

By Ricardo Whitaker
Guilford Gazette (MD), 2/5/2014 

GUILFORD, MD - Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) is in favor of raising the federal minimum wage. In a small business forum held this week at British American Auto Care on Berger Road in [Columbia], MD, Mr. Cardin met with Brian England, the owner of British American, and other small business owners to discuss his support for a higher minimum wage. ...

Read more

By Stacy Perman
New York Times, Feb 5, 2014

... there are also business owners who support the increases. These owners suggest that businesses actually benefit from paying higher wages because of reduced turnover and the additional money that goes into local economies.

Amanda Rothschild, co-owner of Charmington’s, a cafe in Baltimore, calls the arguments against raising the minimum “shortsighted.” Since opening in 2010, the cafe has paid new hires $8 an hour, more than the current $7.25 minimum (they also earn tips).

“I think those against increases underestimate how business success is tied to employee...

By Dan Ritter
Wall St. Cheat Sheet, Feb 4, 2014

America may have one of the strongest economies in the world, but it is still highly dysfunctional. Those who participate in it know that it is easy to become trapped by debt, that it is easy to become stuck in a low-paying job with stagnant wages, and that it is easy to become a pessimist about personal financial situations and the economic outlook at large. ...

How to address this problem has been the subject of an enormous amount of debate.... Because of the stagnant...