The increase directly and indirectly could raise pay for up to 28 million workers, according to estimates from the liberal Economic Policy Institute.
The legislation has received backing from 75 economists, but its passage remains a political long shot.
CNNMoney
January 29, 2014
Obama renewed his call for lawmakers to pass a proposal to raise the minimum wage for all workers to $10.10 per hour by 2015. A legislative increase would affect 27 million workers, according to an analysis of census data by the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute.
McClatchy
January 29, 2014
This year the White House promises todeliver the most interactive State of the Union yet. In anticipation for tonight’s speech, we’ve offered 17 charts of our own to better explain a core message in this year’s State of the Union: economic inequality in America.
IT ISN’T JUST WAGES, DIFFERENCES IN CAPITAL INCOME HAVE SKYROCKETED OVER THE LAST DECADE
January 29, 2014
Per the Economic Policy Institute, working women would be more affected by a raise to $10.10 than men. See the wage increase impact by gender here.
National Journal
January 29, 2014
Obama’s minimum wage order will cover people who perform services, such as janitors or construction workers, and make less than $10.10 per hour.
David Cooper, an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington, said the announcement of the pay hike is “a good step going forward” but is limited in its reach.
“It’s not going to have the same impact that Congress increasing the federal minimum wage for all workers would have, and because it only applies to new contracts or contracts that are renegotiated, it may take a little while before current employees of federal contractors see the increase in their pay,” said Cooper, whose organization has advocated for a minimum wage increase.
In a call with officials at the Economic Policy Institute on Monday night before the announcement, Jason Furman, a top economic adviser to the president, told the group that the White House believes the executive action could impact roughly 250,000 people, according to Ross Eisenbrey, vice president at EPI.
USA Today
January 29, 2014
But the minimum wage order will also illustrate the limits of that approach. If Congress increases the federal minimum wage to $10.10 from $7.25 as Mr. Obama has sought, 17 million employees would eventually get a raise unless their jobs were eliminated and another 11 million would benefit indirectly as wage ladders were adjusted, according to estimates by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research organization. Mr. Obama’s order, by contrast, will affect relatively few at first because it will apply only to new or renewed contracts, and even down the road at most it might affect several hundred thousand workers.
New York Times
January 29, 2014
The rise in inequality has coincided with an enormous growth in the financial sector, which remunerates its employees extremely generously. Indeed, much of the shift in overall income to the top one per cent can be explained by the contribution of this one industry. “Executives, and workers in finance, accounted for 58 percent of the expansion of income for the top 1 percent and 67 percent of the increase in income for the top 0.1 percent from 1979 to 2005,” a 2012 paper from the liberal Economic Policy Institute pointed out.
The New Yorker
January 29, 2014
But that’s by no means the norm. Tom Hungerford, an economist with the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute who used to analyze tax policy for the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, says the vast majority of small business owners don’t make enough to clear the bar.
“So you’re just talking about the very top of the income distribution, probably owners of S-corps and some partnerships,” he says. “A lot of those are law firms, and I don’t think they have huge capital investments.” The rest in that bracket are mostly salaried executives, managers, financiers, lawyers and doctors — who tend to spend their personal income on themselves, not their business.
The Washington Post
January 29, 2014
Rising inequality has obvious economic costs: stagnant wages despite rising productivity, rising debt that makes us more vulnerable to financial crisis. It also has big social and human costs. There is, for example, strong evidence that high inequality leads to worse health and higher mortality.
New York Times
January 27, 2014
A major political clash over public-sector unions unfolded in Wisconsin, which imposed new restrictions on public-sector unions in 2011. The limits were blocked by the courts for part of 2012, but an impact was apparent.
Union representation among Wisconsin’s public-sector employees, including union members and workers who do not pay union dues but still enjoy union contract pay and benefits, dropped to 37.6 percent in 2013 from 53.4 percent in 2011.
The latest U.S. data suggest, “the erosion of public sector union coverage reflects the new anti-collective bargaining policies implemented in several states,” said Lawrence Mishel, president of the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Reuters
January 27, 2014