BFMW In the News

By Matt Bittle
Bay to Bay News, March 17, 2021

DOVER — The Delaware Senate is set to vote Thursday on legislation raising the state’s minimum wage from $9.25 to $15 in phases, after passing it through committee Wednesday. ...

Forty-four members of the public spoke on the bill in the two-hour Senate Labor Committee meeting, with a majority favoring passage. ...

Alissa Barron-Menza, vice president of Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, noted that a federal minimum wage was first enacted during the Great Depression in the 1930s to help spark economic growth.

By Taylor Goebel
Delaware Business Times, March 17, 2021

DOVER – Delaware is one step closer to raising its hourly minimum wage to $15 by 2025, after the Senate Labor Committee cleared Senate Bill 15 on Wednesday afternoon. ...

Ecolistic Cleaning owner Courtney Sunborn said during the meeting that all employees at her Lewes location will be making at least $15 by the end of 2021. None of them currently make below $14.50.

Sunborn, who began her cleaning service company 19 years ago, said paying a livable wage is “good for business.”

By Melissa Steele
Cape Gazette,  March 12, 2021

... In a press conference March 8, Sen. Jack Walsh, D-Stanton, said raising the minimum wage is about giving workers a living wage. “Somebody who puts in a full day of work should be able to put a roof over their heads,” he said. “They deserve our help in lifting them out of poverty.” ...

The bill proposes to incrementally increase the minimum wage to $15 by 2025.

By Alaa Elassar
CNN, March 9, 2021

President Joe Biden, along with other Democrats, have voiced support for an increase in the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 an hour. ... Here's what some hourly workers and small business owners have to say ...

Owner: Ji Hye Kim

Ji Hye Kim, 43, owns Miss Kim, a Korean restaurant, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

By Aarthi Swaminathan
Yahoo Finance, March 9, 2021

Increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 will boost wages for 32 million workers in America, a new report says. ...

'It makes great business sense'

By Alex Seitz-Wald
NBC News, March 8, 2021

WASHINGTON — ... For the first time in years, Democrats may find a receptive audience from major business interests and some Republicans for raising the minimum wage — although not all the way to $15. Even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the titan of Washington business lobbying, says the current $7.25 federal minimum is "outdated."

By Alina Selyukh
NPR Morning Edition, March 8, 2021

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: NPR's Alina Selyukh talked with a lot of different business owners about a possible $15 minimum wage. And she got a whole lot of different opinions. ...

ASHRAF HIJAZ: People will spend the money when they have it.

SELYUKH: Ashraf Hijaz has about 150 workers at about two dozen beauty supply and furniture stores around the South. His starting pay is about $9 an hour. But Hijaz advocates for the $15 minimum because it would affect most of his shoppers.

By Joe Irizarry
Delaware Public Media, March 8, 2021

Legislation raising Delaware’s minimum wage to $15 per hour is expected to be introduced soon. And there is some business support for it. ...

Courtney Sunborn is the owner of Ecolistic Cleaning, a cleaning service in Lewes, and she says raising the minimum wage will help businesses as well as employees.

By Mark Fowser
WGMD, Delmarva, March 8, 2021

Supporters of a movement to increase Delaware’s minimum wage spoke as one Monday in favor of raising it to $15 an hour within a few years, and to dispel messages against it they say are not true.

Senator Jack Walsh (D- Stanton) has submitted a bill that would increase the minimum wage from its current level of $9.25 to ... $15 per hour in 2025.

Represented Monday were the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 27, SEIU 32BJ, Delaware Working Families Party, and Business for a Fair Minimum Wage. ...

By Mike Phillips
WDEL News Radio, Mar 8, 2021

... State Senator Jack Walsh (D-Stanton) said he intends to file legislation this session that would raise the minimum wage in Delaware to $15 an hour by the middle of the decade. ...

Courtney Sunborn, who owns Lewes-based Ecolistic Cleaning, believes maintaining a living wage benefits both workers and the business.

"We've seen that it increases both employee commitment and reliability, but it decreases turnover," she said. ...

By Zoë Read
WHYY, NPR, March 8, 2021

A coalition of business groups and politicians spoke Monday during a virtual event in favor of a $15 minimum wage in Delaware.

Legislation introduced by Sen. Jack Walsh would gradually increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025. ... “Someone who puts in a hard day’s work deserves to earn enough to keep a roof over their head and food on the table. Frankly, they deserve what previous generations of low-wage earners have had — a living wage,” Walsh said during the event. ...

By Eric Morath and Heather Haddon
Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2021

A debate to raise the federal minimum wage has tied Congress in knots, but many large employers and business groups wouldn’t mind an increase. ...

Costco Chief Executive Craig Jelinek told Congress at a hearing last week that the retailer was raising starting pay to $16 an hour and that hourly employees are paid an average of $24 an hour. Costco has about 180,000 full-time and part-time U.S. employees.

Op-Ed By Michael O'Connor, Owner, La Barberia

I’m a small business owner, and I strongly support raising the minimum wage to $15. ... I know that if my employees aren’t happy, my customers won’t be happy. ...

By Oscar Perry Abello
Next City, Feb 26, 2021

While federal policymakers are debating the first federal minimum wage increase in more than a decade, consumer giant Costco with its 180,000 employees announced it will raise its internal minimum wage to $16 an hour. That’s one dollar more than the $15 an hour that workers and labor groups have been demanding for years as a federal minimum wage. ...

By Mia Summerson
Keene Sentinel (NH), Feb 25, 2021

One of the leaders of a Gilsum-based business testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business on Wednesday, speaking in favor of raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Addressing the committee via video call, W.S. Badger Company’s co-CEO, Rebecca Hamilton, urged Congress to support the Raise the Wage Act of 2021, which aims to increase the minimum wage incrementally until it reaches $15 an hour in ... 2025. ...