BFMW In the News

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. ...

Courtney Sunborn, owner of Ecolistic Cleaning based in Lewes, said the business makes it a principle to pay living wages. Ecolistic plans to implement a starting wage of $15 sometime this year.

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. ...

Read more

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. ...

Some business leaders say raising the minimum wage could boost the economy because people will have more money to spend.

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. ...

By Ledyard King
USA TODAY, Feb 25, 2021

Backers of a push to raise the federal hourly minimum wage to $15 suffered a key loss Thursday after a Senate official ruled the controversial measure cannot be considered as part of President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID relief package making its way through Congress. ...

Rebecca Hamilton, co-CEO of New Hampshire-based W.S. Badger Company, which makes skincare products, told the [House Small Business] committee that paying her employees no less than $15 an hour has helped her small firm.

By Samantha Manning
Cox Media Group, Washington News Bureau, Feb 24, 2021

Leaders in Washington are debating whether the federal minimum wage should be more than doubled from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour. A House subcommittee took up the issue Wednesday, and lawmakers were at odds over the long-term economic impact to workers and small businesses.

Lawmakers heard from a small-business owner of a [skin care] company based in New Hampshire which already starts the pay rate for workers at $15 an hour.

“Our fair pay business model has helped us to attract and retain excellent staff, while supporting the health of our community and keeping us successful into second-generation family ownership,” said Rebecca Hamilton, Co-CEO of W.S. Badger Company. ...

By Damien Fisher
Union Leader (NH), Feb 24, 2021

As Congress considers raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour — a measure that might be included in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill — the head of a Gilsum-based health products company testified in favor of paying workers more.

Rebecca Hamilton, co-CEO of the W.S. Badger Company, spoke in favor of the higher minimum via video conferencing Wednesday before the House Small Business Committee. She said high wages have been the key to success at the 90-employee company her father started. ...

By Mitch Perry
Spectrum News, Bay News 9, Feb. 16, 2021

Among the most controversial bills filed in advance of the 2021 Florida legislative session is a proposal by state Sen. Jeff Brandes that would amend the constitutional amendment passed last November that raises the minimum wage to $15 an hour in 2026. The St. Petersburg Republican’s measure would allow the Legislature to exempt convicted felons, people under 21 and other “hard to hire” workers from receiving that higher wage – but it would only go into effect if passed by the voters as a constitutional amendment. ...

Leigh Anne Balzekas runs the Disco Dolls Studio in Tampa. She’s one small business owner who supports raising the minimum wage.

By Megan R. Wilson
Bloomberg, Feb. 16, 2021

A proposal to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2025 has triggered a fierce lobbying battle on Capitol Hill, pitting some powerful business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce against large labor unions and civil rights coalitions. ...

Op-Ed By Wendell Young IV and Sen. Christine “Tina” Tartaglione
Penn Live/ Patriot News, Feb 5, 2021

It is rare that you will find the president of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce, union leaders, advocates, and members of the General Assembly all on the same page. But after a three-hour long hearing hosted by chair of the Democratic Policy Committee Senator Katie Muth at the request of Senators Tartaglione, Haywood and Kane, it seems there might be one issue we could all agree upon: eliminating local government pre-emption for minimum wage laws. ...

By Joanna Fantozzi
Restaurant Hospitality, Feb 5, 2021

By John Biers, Delphine Touitou
AFP News (Agence France-Presse), Barron's, Jan 31, 2021. Also in International Business Times, Yahoo News, MSN, Raw Story, many more

When President Joe Biden unveiled a $1.9 trillion stimulus proposal earlier this month, few were surprised by the plan's hefty price tag or sweeping scope. More striking was Biden's inclusion of a measure to more than double the federal minimum wage to $15. ...

In response to written questions on whether to index local costs, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen emphasized the need for a "nationwide" wage hike "phased in over time."

Holly Sklar, the founder of activist network Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, rejected indexing the wage to regional costs.