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Media bias: once again, a news article about a financially struggling single mother trying to raise her children makes absolutely no mention of their father The Guardian recently published this article about a single mother who is having financial troubles as she tries to raise her two children on the salary that she gets from working at a fast food restaurant.As is always the case with articles like this, the article makes absolutely no mention of the children’s father. (I have written about this media irresponsibility before – see here and here.)In this particular case, the article refers to the woman...

Low wage workers are fighting for Texas to increase its minimum wage, which is currently at $7.25 an hour. However, lawmakers have filed eight bills this session to try to change that, including increasing it to $10, or even $15 an hour. In particular, a group called "Fight for 15" testified before a House panel. The group argued that receiving less than that wage keeps people in poverty..."The economic reality of raising the minimum wage, just a blanket mandate on everyone, unfortunately, it's just not a reality,"

Fight for 15 looks down for the count. Andy Puzder understands what almost no liberals have even the slightest clue about: Businesses exist to maximize profit. If an employee enjoys prosperity as a result of providing value to the business and being commensurately rewarded, that’s a good thing that makes everyone happy. But the purpose of the business is not to make employees rich just for the sake of it. It’s to make the shareholders rich. So when dopes take to the streets demanding a minimum wage of $15 with their mindless #FightFor15, Puzder understand exactly what that will mean....

As recently as last year, the Democratic Party’s leaders thought the idea of a $15 federal minimum wage was unrealistic and even pushed back against it. That ended in July when the official party platform, bowing to pressure from organized labor and Sen. Bernie Sanders and his supporters, adopted a call for a $15 federal minimum, more than double the current rate of $7.25 an hour. […] When Seattle increased its minimum to $15 in 2014, a boost of nearly $6 an hour, it also commissioned a study of the increase’s effect by the University of Washington. A report released...

Say goodbye to the late-night fries and gravy. One of the last classic Brooklyn diners is biting the dust — and soon they’ll all die off due to the state’s minimum-wage increase and other factors, restaurateurs and economic experts predicted Friday. The owner of the four-decade-old, 24-hour greasy spoon, Del Rio Diner in Gravesend, said his place is closing down because he can’t afford to pay cooks $15 an hour, along with rising rents and expensive Health Department inspection fees. …

Move over, humans. A robot-operated restaurant is heading to the Bay Area. Momentum Machines, a San Francisco-based startup, plans to launch a burger joint where fare is cooked, seasoned and wrapped by robots, Tech Insider reported. The still unnamed restaurant will utilize what Momentum Machines built in 2012 — a machine that could churn out 400 burgers in an hour. The innovative appliance includes a stamper that grinds and stamps custom blends of meat, a vegetable slicer, an oven to toast the meat and bun, and a bagger to wrap the complete product. Images released by the company show the...

Beware the $15 minimum wage for menial labor — it’ll eventually come back to bite you in the hindquarters. As wages for fast-food workers continue to spiral upwards, hamburger chain Wendy’s is fast-replacing human workers with automation. The company announced this week that by the second half of the year, ordering will be available through the use of self-service kiosks throughout its entire 6,000 locations, according to Investors Business Daily. It will be up to each franchisee whether to use the new technology or to stick with the old system. Wendy’s President Todd Penegor observed that some locations have already...

Los Angeles was once the epicenter of apparel manufacturing, attracting buyers from across the world to its clothing factories, sample rooms and design studios. But over the years, cheap overseas labor lured many apparel makers to outsource to foreign competitors in far-flung places such as China and Vietnam. Now, Los Angeles firms are facing another big hurdle — California's minimum wage hitting $15 an hour by 2022 — which could spur more garment makers to exit the state. Last week American Apparel, the biggest clothing maker in Los Angeles, said it might outsource the making of some garments to another...

A fifteen dollar per hour minimum wage is coming to California, so break out the champagne and let’s get this party started! Unless you work in the apparel manufacturing industry, that is, in which case you may want to start looking for some cheaper drinks since you’ll likely be out of a job soon. Once the home to a large segment of the American clothing manufacturing industry, California apparel manufacturers have already been hit by skyrocketing commercial real estate value and rising supply chain costs, but another spike in their labor rates will apparently be the final straw for some...

Here’s an unusual story out of Texas which seems to defy all the conventional wisdom about employment trends and wages. The local press has noticed that nursing homes are having trouble filling the health care jobs at their facilities these days. That’s particularly curious when you consider that healthcare has consistently been one of the fastest growing job markets in the country for several years now. So where are all of the trained healthcare workers who would normally fill those jobs? It seems that an increasing number of them have packed it in and left for jobs flipping burgers. (KXAN...

California and New York — where almost 1 in 5 Americans live — are on their way to raising their minimum wage to $15 an hour, and the activists who spearheaded those efforts are now setting their sights on other similarly liberal, Democratic-led states. Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington are among the states with active “Fight for $15” efforts, and even economic experts who oppose the increased rate see it gaining momentum. “There is lots of pressure to do this,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Congressional Budget Office director who is now president of...

Governor Andrew Cuomo and state legislative leaders reached a tentative deal on Thursday to raise New York state's minimum wage towards $15 per hour but fell short of a uniform state-wide increase, lawmakers said. The deal outlines a faster rise in New York City, but carves out a slow lane for small businesses and its surrounding counties. In less prosperous areas north of the city it rises to $12.50 per hour before a state review of the law's impact. The minimum wage has been a sticking point in difficult budget negotiations that threaten to delay a spending plan past the...

Raising the minimum wage in California to the highest statewide level in the nation would eventually cost taxpayers an additional $3.6 billion a year in higher pay for government employees, legislative analysts determined. The estimate was disclosed as an Assembly committee gave initial approval Wednesday to boosting the wage to $15 an hour by 2022. The full state Assembly and Senate could vote on the deal between Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and labor unions as early as Thursday. […] First-year costs to the state would total $19 million, when the minimum pay bumps to $10.50 on Jan. 1, according to...

A political deal to raise California’s minimum wage to a nation-leading $15 an hour could help some workers cope with the state’s crushing cost of living but also deprive other low-wage earners of jobs altogether, economists said Monday as Gov. Jerry Brown and other leaders touted what would be a landmark agreement. California’s economy is larger than that of most countries, with a wide diversity of earners. While newly minted millionaires gentrify neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area, some Central Valley field hands lack access to clean water. A jump from the current $10 an hour spread over six...

California lawmakers and union leaders have reached a tentative deal to raise the state minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next several years, the Los Angeles Times reports. Gov. Jerry Brown (D) is expected to make the formal announcement as early as Monday. According to the L.A. Times, the minimum wage will jump from $10 to $10.50 an hour in 2017 and will increase by $1 every year after that until reaching $15 an hour in 2022. Business with fewer than 25 employees will have an extra year to comply. "The governor and stakeholders have all been negotiating...

New York State appears ready to throw as many as 200,000 people out of work by imposing a $15 an hour minimum wage statewide. The New York Post reports: Republican Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan is close to a “Faustian pact’’ with Democratic Gov. Cuomo to raise the state’s minimum wage to a national high of $15 an hour — boosting union power and possibly costing New York hundreds of thousands of jobs. A source close to Flanagan said the deal would involve Cuomo agreeing to do “little if anything’’ to help Senate Democrats, now just one vote shy of...

NEW YORK – A CEO of a fast-food company is causing a stir on social media after claiming that he wants to create a fully automated restaurant. “We could have a restaurant that’s focused on all-natural products and is much like an Eatsa, where you order on a kiosk, you pay with a credit or debit card, your order pops up, and you never see a person,” Carl’s Jr. CEO Andy Puzder told Business Insider. Puzder says the automated restaurant would be cheaper since he wouldn’t have to worry about rising minimum wage. “If you’re making labor more expensive, and...

Raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour would benefit 927,400 city workers and pump $6.5 billion into the city's economy, according to state Labor Department report released Wednesday. The report predicted that Gov. Cuomo’s proposal for a $15 minimum wage would boost wages for 2.3 million workers across the state and generate $15.7 billion for New York's economy through increased consumer spending. ... Release of the report came a day after state Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-Suffolk County), who has expressed reservations about Cuomo's plan, said Senate Republicans needed more information about the proposal's impact. A report produced...

U.S. cities that implemented big minimum-wage hikes to $10 an hour or more in 2015 have seen a strikingly similar aftermath: Job gains have fallen to multiyear lows at restaurants, hotels and other leisure and hospitality venues. The data aren't, for the most part, stark and reliable enough to amount to smoking-gun proof. But Chicago, Oakland, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. — all on the leading edge of the push for big minimum wage hikes — all show worrisome job trends.

More than 100 restaurant owners in the state of New York are begging Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) not to force them to pay their waiters and waitresses $15 an hour. But it's doubtful he heard them over the roar of union workers at rallies Jan. 4 supporting Cuomo's call for a statewide $15 an hour minimum wage. Melissa Fleischut, president and CEO of the New York State Restaurant Association, can see the $15 an hour wage coming, but she's hoping for a five-year moratorium for people who make their livings on tips. She said her organization's members would be crushed...