471 results for author: Karl Kramer
Editorial: Marin equity divide makes income initiative a worthy experiment
By: Marin Independent Journal Editorial Board April 3, 2021
Turning talk into action, Marin Community Foundation and Marin County are joining forces to launch a universal basic income initiative aimed at providing 125 low-income single minority mothers with $1,000 per month for two years.
The goal is to bridge the economic equity chasm and racial divide in our county.
The foundation is committing $3 million and the county is investing $400,000 for the trial to see how a guaranteed income can help address poverty and racial inequities.
“We are starting with those moms with the greatest aggregate of challenges; low income, young children and facing the daily travails and insults of overt and covert racial discrimination,” said Thomas Peters, the foundation’s chief executive.
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The $15 Minimum Wage Isn’t the Only Way to Raise Worker Pay
By: Katie Bach and Zeynep Ton for Politico March 29, 2021
To the disappointment of many on the left, President Joe Biden’s Covid-19 relief package did not include an increase in the federal minimum wage, dimming the prospect of setting a national wage floor at $15. But there is another step the administration can take to push companies to pay more: disclosure.
There’s a business maxim that goes, “What gets measured, gets managed.” If it’s not possible to pass legislation to impose higher minimum wages, the administration can still put upward pressure on wages by requiring companies to disclose data on their workers’ take-home pay. Pay disclosures would let employers, employees and investors all know if workers are earning enough to support themselves and their families.
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Biden faces fresh pressure from the left to raise the minimum wage
By: Ayelet Sheffey March 19, 2021, Business Insider
While the lack of a minimum wage increase in the latest stimulus bill was a blow to many progressives, they aren't giving up the fight to ensure the wage gets increased this year. And on Friday, they joined labor leaders in a call with reporters to share ways they might look to pass the provision through Congress.
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Women’s History Month is the right time to raise the minimum wage
By: Ben Jealous for the St. Louis American, Tues March 14, 2021
It is time for a maximum push for a new minimum wage. The federal minimum wage has not budged for more than a decade. But the cost of living keeps rising. So, low-income people fall further and further behind. Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would lift millions of working people out of poverty. This is especially true for families headed by women, especially Black women, who are disproportionately clustered in minimum-wage jobs.
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Senate minimum wage battle could play out in midterm elections
By: Jessica Goodhart for The Guardian Capital and Main March 9, 2021
Sara Fearrington, a North Carolina waitress, joined the Fight for $15 campaign two years ago. A server at a Durham Waffle House, her take-home pay fluctuates between $350 and $450 a week, leaving her struggling to pay bills every month. She voted for Joe Biden, who had pledged to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. It was the first time Fearrington, who is 44, had ever voted in a presidential election.
“It would mean everything. It would create stability for my household,” she said of the impact that a higher wage could have on her and her family of five, which includes her husband, who suffers from a rare lung condition, and a granddaughter who has asthma.