The odds that Republican House Speaker John Boehner will allow a vote on raising the minimum wage remain as low as ever, but some large retailers are already raising the wage on their own initiative. On Wednesday, clothing chain Gap Inc. announced it would be raising its base wage from $9 to $10 per hour next year, directly benefiting as much as 72% of its hourly workforce.
"No one who works full-time should have to raise their children in poverty," Senator Barbara Boxer said. She was talking about raising the minimum wage during aspeech to the Commonwealth Club of California. In addition to citing the moral reason the federal minimum wage deserves a second look, she also made an economic argument. "When working people have a little more in their paychecks, they spend a little more in their communities. So that's what we're trying to do," she added.
Carter adopted an emerging technique in the 1970s, hiding references to whites behind talk of ethnic subpopulations, and he also presented blacks as trying to preserve their own segregated neighborhoods. Notwithstanding these dissimulations, few could fail to understand that Carter was defending white efforts to oppose racial integration, and many liberals criticized Carter for doing so.
New York is on the cusp of adopting a campaign finance reform that would amplify small donations with matching funds, reducing the power of big special interest money over the state's politics. It would also allow New Yorkers to claim the mantle of the first state to take back their democracy in the era of Citizens United and unprecedented campaign spending.
But adopting Fair Elections would accomplish something else badly needed in our democracy: more diverse representation in our political leadership.
A photo voter ID law signed by Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry is unnecessary, unfair, restrictive and intentionally discriminates against African-American and Latino voters, a coalition of civil rights groups will argue in a letter to the Justice Department on Wednesday.
And, says Anastasia Christman of the National Employment Law Project, "his focus on putting young people to work is critical for communities of color." The plan contains funding for summer job and youth work programs.
In their new book, "Good Jobs America: Making Work Better for Everyone," Paul Osterman and Beth Shulman argue that the United States needs to worry about not just creating millions more jobs but also ensuring that the jobs are good ones.
Law that tries to exclude human judgment of right and wrong always veers towards unintended places - as with the Rockefeller drug laws, or "three strikes" laws that send petty criminals to jail for life.
Saira Malik, Nuveen CIO, Jason Furman, professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and former CEA chair, Tyler Goodspeed, Cato Institute adjunct scholar and former acting CEA chairman, and Angela Hanks, chief of programs at Demos, join CNBC's 'Squawk Box' to react to September's key jobs report.
"Supporting year-round civic engagement provides an entry point for communities to begin to engage more intentionally with the political system at the local, state, and federal levels."
Raising the debt ceiling cannot come at the expense of workers, especially those workers who are finally getting a foothold in the labor market; some for the first time ever
More than a decade later, National Voter Registration Day has been endorsed by national associations and the federal government. More than 5 million voters have been registered to vote on the holiday since 2012.
A study of 10 states’ voter purge policies released earlier this month identified potential barriers to voter participation and urged reform in Indiana and nine others.
Arizona is in litigation over a 2022 law that could allow for what some are calling “draconian purge practices” that lead to more Arizona voters being disenfranchised.