By Angel González
Seattle Times, January 29, 2014

... On Wednesday, the day after his State of the Union address called for lifting the minimum wage for working Americans, the president chose to speak at a Costco in Maryland. The Issaquah-based company, he said, is proof that higher wages are “a smart way to boost productivity and to reduce turnover.” ...

The presidential visit underscores how Costco is gaining a prominent role in the growing national debate about income inequality.

The company is known for paying its workers well — an average $20.89 per hour for...

By Editorial Staff
Workplace Weekly News, Jan 29, 2014

President Obama in his State Of The Union address called on businesses, mayors, governors to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 ... In a related development, small Business Owners Say, ‘Raise the Minimum Wage’ in a jaw-jaw with Secretary of labor:

Amanda Rothschild runs a small café in Baltimore in which she pays her employees just above the current federal minimum wage, and she does so because it’s good for her bottom line. She told me [Sec. Perez] that when you put more money in workers’ pockets, they...

By Bonnie Washuk
Sun Journal (Lewison-Auburn, ME),  January 29, 2014

AUBURN — President Barack Obama's call in Tuesday's State of the Union address for employers to pay workers a minimum of $10.10 per hour got a mixed reaction in Maine on Wednesday. ... Jim Wellehan of Auburn, who owns Lamey Wellehan shoe stores and is an activist for fair wages, said he agreed with the president. Paying workers a fair wage is important for a good business and a healthy economy, he said.

“It's only fair,” said Wellehan, who belongs to a national business group that favors...

By Krystal Nichols and Getahn Ward
The Tennessean, Jan 29, 2014

... Some business executives see raising the minimum wage as a way to boost the economy since it would encourage more spending. “I don’t know how any corporation can condone poverty wages. How can you live with yourself when you have workers who can’t put a meal on the table?” said Maryanne Howland, owner of Ibis Communications.

David Penn, director for the Business and Economic Research Center at Middle Tennessee State University, said an increase in the minimum wage is needed to counteract a long-term...

State of the Union
By Michael R. Crittenden and Eric Morath
Wall Street Journal, Washington Wire, Jan 28, 2014

Republican lawmakers challenged President Barack Obama’s plan to raise the minimum wage for employees of federal contractors, suggesting it would have little impact on workers and could exacerbate partisan gridlock. Democrats were quick to celebrate the move, to be announced during Tuesday night’s State of the Union address. It would raise the minimum wage for workers on new federal contracts to $10.10 an hour. ...

“These jobs include food service workers in federal buildings, people doing laundry...

By Leah Arnold-Smeets
PayScale, Jan 28, 2014

... Small business owners are in favor of raising minimum wage because it will put “more money in the pockets of those in their communities,” according to an interview by Secretary Tom Perez for the US Department of Labor. One of those small business owners is Amanda Rothschild who owns a small café in Baltimore, and she justifies the wage increase.

“Our training costs would be significantly higher if we paid lower wages and we had the kind of turnover that you typically see in a restaurant,” she explains...

By Diane Stafford
Kansas City Star, Jan 28, 2014

... Just hours before his annual State of the Union address, in which he once again called on Congress to raise the $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage for all workers, [President] Obama exercised his presidential ability to set a higher minimum wage for federally contracted employees. The order affects a small number of such workers — probably fewer than half a million low-paid workers such as food service, laundry and janitorial workers nationwide. ...

The order doesn’t include the federal government’s own workers and won’t take effect until...

By Constantine Von Hoffman
CBS Money Watch, Jan 28, 2014

... A December Washington Post poll found two-thirds of Americans support raising the minimum wage, while a recent Gallup poll showed 76 percent in favor. While it may not be a surprise that 85 percent of Democrats support such a move, half of all Republican’s and 65 percent of independents also support such a move, according to the Post poll. ...

Among the interests opposing a rise in the minimum wage are a number of business groups that historically have lobbied against pay hikes, including the...

U Need 2 Know Radio (Columbia, DC), Host Frank Knapp interviews Carmen Larsen, 1/28/14

Listen Here: http://www.uneed2know.info/carmen-larsen-1-28-14/

By Jeremy Allen
MLive Media Group, Jan 27, 2014

Paul Saginaw, the co-owner of Zingerman’s Delicatessen ... joined business owners from Colorado, New York, Maryland and Washington, D.C., to lobby U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez. The business owners talked about the positive impacts of paying employees a higher wage than the government minimum of $7.25 per hour.

“We’ve grown since opening Zingerman’s Delicatessen almost 32 years ago to eight businesses in Ann Arbor employing 625 permanent staff with revenues just under $50 million dollars,” Saginaw said in a Jan. 23 roundtable discussion with the...

There are several conservative reasons for supporting a minimum wage hike

By Carrie Wofford
US News & World Report, Jan. 27, 2014
    
Tuesday night, in his State of the Union address, the president will raise the problem of wealth inequality in America and how to ensure America is still a land of opportunity, with the possibility of a middle-class American Dream open to all. This will likely include the need for a minimum wage increase. ... More families who were formerly middle class are moving into low-paid service jobs.

... The minimum wage...

By Lorraine Woellert
Bloomberg News, Jan 24, 2014

... If you can’t win on the merits, change the messaging, says Leo Hindery, founder of InterMedia Partners LP, a private equity fund in New York. As Obama prepares for his next annual address on Tuesday, he should abandon the phrase “minimum wage” and instead press lawmakers to approve a higher “entry-level wage” that would allow all U.S. workers to afford basics such as food and shelter, Hindery says. ...

Hindery and other corporate execs made the case for a higher minimum at a meeting yesterday with Labor...

By Secretary of Labor Tom Perez
US Department of Labor, Work in Progress Blog, January 23, 2014

[US Labor Secretary holds roundtable with Business for a Fair Minimum Wage members]

... Today I had the chance to hear from twenty men and women who run businesses, including many who own small businesses. They’ll be directly affected by any increase in the minimum wage. I learned it’s not just workers who support a federal increase; What I heard from these business owners is that raising the wage would help their businesses, too, by putting more money...

By John D. Oravecz
Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Jan. 21, 2014

... Businesses paying the minimum wage and their workers continue to be at the center of a longstanding debate. ...

... Other small business owners, such as Scott Smith at East End Brewery Co. in Larimer, are advocates for paying what they see as a fair wage. Smith has six fulltime and three parttime workers and produced 4,000 barrels of beer last year, up from 2,500 in 2012. “I have a hard time paying a pittance; that's disrespectful to our guys,” he said. “Our entry jobs...

District Chronicles (MD), Jan 20, 2014

ANNAPOLIS – Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley and Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown pledged to raise the state’s minimum wage to $10.10 by 2016 and index it to inflation thereafter at a rally before hundreds of minimum wage supporters as well as elected officials, faith leaders, low-wage workers and business owners in Annapolis. ...

National polls show that 67 percent of small business owners support increasing the federal minimum wage and adjusting it yearly to keep pace with the cost of living. The most rigorous studies of the impact of...