President Joe Biden will issue an executive order on Tuesday raising the minimum wage paid by federal contractors to $15 an hour, according to a White House statement.
Biden knows what he’s doing. This is how you get what you want, ramp up the pressure, without any screaming or dog n pony shows in Congress. Just watch, there’ll be a $15 minimum wage passed in some form of legislation before the end of the year.
Minimum wage laws are an effective local grass roots issue.
What is a living wage in MS is poverty in CA or NYC.
Biden’s move to raise it with Federal contractors though has the effect of keeping the issue front and center.
Glad to see Biden is including the “tipped minimum wage”. That thing is bullsh*t. Boycott Olive Garden while you’re at it.
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It’s hard to believe federal contractors’ employees are still making less than $15/hour.
This is important work, paid for BY US, the taxpayers.
One should boycott Olive Garden simply for its presumption of referring to itself as an Italian restaurant.
Eliminating the “tipped minimum wage” loophole is nearly as big a deal, even if just for federal contractors of whom only a handful will work as tipped employees.
The federal tipped minimum wage still remains $2.13 per hour, a dinosaur of a figure that has remained unchanged for 30+ years. It allows employers to pay only a pittance to their workers, including many who are not even directly tipped but only work in industries where tipping is part of the payment for service (like table hosts/hostesses).
Back when the minimum wage was $3.10/hour, I was making only $2.45/hour. Merely because I worked at a movie theatre. It was called “sub-minimum wage.”
We didn’t make any “tips.”
I heard it was because we got to see free movies. ??
Lets see, average price of home in the Twin Cities is up 20% in the past year to about 327,000. EVs start out at plus 40,000 grand and insurance costs are double than over ICE vehicles. Try buying either or both while earning fifteen bucks an hour.
A large percentage of the people who will benefit from this will think Biden had nothing to do with it. He could give everyone free health care tomorrow and his popularity would remain stuck in the low 50s thanks to the FOX tax on sanity that our country is paying.
The crazy is rolling out big time here in AZ - the truly besotted are all waiting with bated breath for the Cyber Ninjas to prove that Trump not only won AZ but every other state also, including California.
This is truly a shithole country. We do not deserve good leaders.
Go Joe! This affects up to 3.7M people (though many are likely already making more than $15/hr).
I remember when certain ppl told us that we needed a real progressive President, not Biden. Biden has now done more progressive stuff in 100 days than Bernard Sanders has in his entire life.
Uh oh…Cue Kennedy from LA to his ‘LEFT OF LENIN’ folksy BS while his constituents are cheering a bit more money in their pocket…
It’s a start. We need to go bigger but, someone is holding the senate hostage and this time it’s not a Turtle
There are people who believe that we fought Russia in WWII, that the sun revolves around the earth, that France is in Asia.
The GOP has all of those.
We did.
MiniMum meaNs “low”. HoW is thiS low? Do We rEaLLy waNt pOOr peopLe to AffOrd lobsteR and other foodstuffs?
It’s generally agreed upon in economics that there is a “bubble up” effect in labor markets, such that a change in only one sector of the economy can drive up wages more or less across the economy. This change may very well have that effect.
Very true, labor markets are quite compartmentalized, and the fact is a “one size fits all” minimum wage is not the most efficient approach. Where I live in SE MI, the going rate for basic labor already sits around $15/hour, and in fact my company has had to increase our base wage just to attract and retain the workers we need (now starting at $16, up to $17 after 3 months, $18 at 6, etc).
Nonetheless, base wages across the country are too low, and this move will have a knock-on effect to some degree. It’s a good, easy start to prod the conversation along.
Were you working full time or part time?