SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The state Senate approved a minimum wage increase yesterday that might help Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger score points with the working poor. But the deal has irked business leaders and Republican legislators who say the governor is more interested in election-year politics than their fiscal concerns. Largely on a party-line vote, 25-13, the state Senate approved the measure, which raises the minimum wage by $1.25 - to $8 an hour - by January, 2008. That would be the highest minimum wage in the nation.
A new year also brings new rules, and businesses must adjust in 2007 to such changes as a higher minimum wage and revised sexual harassment regulations. The minimum wage in California increases from $6.75 to $7.50 per hour today, then increases again to $8 in 2008.
In addition to saving the average American family $2,300 a year, the stores will create new job opportunities for area residents since our philosophy is to hire first within the communities we serve," said Aaron Rios, public affairs manager for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. "Our average pay for full-time hourly associates in San Diego County is $10.98, significantly more than the current $7.50 minimum hourly wage in California. We also offer competitive benefits including health coverage, career training programs, and 401(k), profit sharing and stock purchase plans, just to name a few.
With job openings scarce for young people, the number of unpaid internships has climbed in recent years, leading federal and state regulators to worry that more employers are illegally using such internships for free labor. Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. New York's then-labor commissioner, M. Patricia Smith, ordered investigations into several firms' internships last year. Now, as the U.S. Labor Department's top law-enforcement official, she and the wage and hour division are stepping up enforcement nationwide.
Harry Reid, who called Alan Greenspan "a political hack" and George Bush "a liar," will be Senate majority leader. Nancy Pelosi, elected to Congress with the help of thousands of San Franciscan homosexuals, will be speaker. Who wouldn't want Reid instead of Bill Frist, or Pelosi instead of fatty Hastert? It's a nice change. Bold new vision" these days means Pelosi pledging a drive to notch up the minimum wage. I don't know about the vineyard, hotel and restaurant that Pelosi co-owns, but the effective minimum wage here in Humboldt County, in northern California, is about $10 an hour, which is what you have to promise a young person to mow the lawn. (This rises rapidly to $13 an hour if you want to buy the tyke's loyalty for return visits.) Maybe on some slave plantation in southern Flo...
October's events were the latest in a series of similar events Let Justice Roll has mounted to educate people about the tremendous challenges low-wage working Americans face and what must be done to bring about change. They've played a leading role in recent state minimum wage increases in Arkansas, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and West Virginia and helped win similar victories in California and Massachusetts. This election season, they're focused on helping pass minimum wage initiatives on the ballot in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Montana and Ohio. Poverty in America is a political problem, caused less by a lack of resources than by a failure to come to terms with reality and build the will to change it. It's universally understood that food, shelter, health care and other b...
California legislators are considering two bills that would raise the minimum wage one dollar an hour in a period of two years, and implement an "indexing" system of future increases, guaranteeing regular minimum wage raises on a yearly basis, proportional to the state's inflation rate. ''Salary raises shouldn't be used as political tools to benefit a certain candidate's interest during electoral season. It should be something according to the citizen's social and economic needs, particularly of those who work the most and do the hardest, toughest jobs that nobody wants to do but have to be done". We found that since the purchasing power of the California 's minimum wage peaked in 1968, the decline hasn't kept pace with inflation and today the minimum wage buys about a third less than ...
ver las páginas en versión mobile | web
ver las páginas en versión mobile | web
© Copyright 2012, vLex. All Rights Reserved.
Contents in vLex United States
Explore vLex
For Professionals
For Partners
Company
Other interesting searches:
securities act industry guide 7 | Olympia Snowe del Maine | aegean sea in greece | hospital | PPI Motorsports, LLC | Cugnaux | milott | movilidad laboral en europa | Derecho de habitación
