The Employment Policies Institute (EPI) recently released a new report revealing that a majority of economists across the country are against raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. The report surveyed some 160 economists with a full 75 percent believing that the change would have a negative effect on youth employment levels while…
Read More »No surprise here given President Biden’s self-proclamation as the most labor-friendly President in history, but the annual Economic Report by the Presidents Council of Economic Advisors calls for increased minimum wages and higher unionization rates as ways to boost U.S. economic growth. Its latest report, released last week, also calls for measures to curb the…
Read More »For those who may operate Dunkin’ stores on federal property, associated labor costs will be rising again with the implementation of a federal employee and contractor minimum wage increase to $15 per hour no later than Sunday, January 30, 2022. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) released guidance last week directing all government agencies to…
Read More »The temporary victory for federal contractors over the Biden vaccine mandate notwithstanding, those same contractors have little to cheer as relates a different presidential executive order, this one mandating $15/hour minimum wages for their employees. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has published its final rule implementing Executive Order # 14026, which mandates a $15…
Read More »It seems there are some out there who refuse to acknowledge that the tip credit and the minimum wage can and should be allowed to peacefully co-exist. As a case in point, in the wake of President Biden’s Executive Order raising the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 an hour, DOL issued a proposed…
Read More »At the federal level, the push for a $15 minimum wage is still hung up by the opposition of moderate democrat Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ). The two moderates have agreed that the federal minimum wage (currently $7.25/hour) should be raised, but balk at the $15 figure. Sinema last week joined Mitt…
Read More »As we anticipate another run by progressives in Congress at a federal $15 minimum wage, it’s reported that a group of moderate Senators – led by Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Mitt Romney (R-UT) are working on bipartisan legislation that would increase the federal minimum over the next four years from the current $7.25 to $10…
Read More »The late New York Yankee hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra is credited with first uttering that now well-known phrase, but it seems Congressional democrats are scheming to take it to the next level. Despite a majority in the US Senate being opposed to a $15 federal minimum wage, and prior rulings by the Senate…
Read More »It will not be a surprise when the issue of raising the federal minimum wage again surfaces in Congress. A proposal by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to raise the current federal wage of $7.25 an hour to $15 per hour may have been stricken from the COVID stimulus bill by the Senate Parliamentarian, but the…
Read More »Last night, Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate Parliamentarian, ruled that a federal minimum wage increase would be ineligible under reconciliation rules, effectively killing it as a component of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. To be eligible for action in the US Senate via reconciliation under the so-called Byrd Rule (authored by and named for…
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