Free Republic

Did you know that 89 percent of all minimum wage workers in the United States are not teens? At this point, the average age of a minimum wage worker in this country is 36, and 56 percent of them are women. Millions upon millions of Americans are working as hard as they can (often that means two or three jobs), and yet despite all of their hard work they still find themselves mired in poverty. One of the big reasons for this is that we have created two classes of workers in the United States. “Full-time workers” are entitled to...

Resurgent right. Conservatives in Britain are quite a bit less conservative than U.S. Republicans, which I suppose is quite the caveat given what we’ve seen in the McConnell/Boehner era. But they’re still the center-right alternative to the very left-wing Labour Party, and British voters decided once again yesterday that they’d rather keep their government in the hands of those on the right side of the aisle. The Conservatives look to end up with 329 seats, which is three more than they need for an outright majority. Labour won only 228 seats. It wasn’t really that close, and much as we...

Every year since 2002, Minnesota has been losing residents to other states. What’s worse: Young adults are leaving in the greatest numbers. Casey Sperzel is Minnesotan through and through. She grew up in Maple Grove, went to college at the University of Minnesota, and lived in both St. Paul and Minneapolis. But when the 27-year-old met with a job recruiter last year, she was set on the Pacific Northwest. “I don’t think I’ll be back,” said Sperzel, now with a Seattle ad agency. States are scrambling for young professionals like Sperzel to help offset the wave of baby boomer retirements....

- South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley considers the bid to unionize workers at Boeing Co's North Charleston plant a threat to one of her state's corporate crown jewels, and she is turning to radio, speeches and social media to denounce the campaign. "We don't need their bully middleman tactics between our associates and their employer," she wrote on Twitter last month. It was a message in keeping with Haley's previous declarations that she is a "union buster" who wears high heels to kick out organized labor "thugs" seeking to gain a foothold in the state. The April 22 union vote...

The largest labor organization in the United States on Tuesday launched a national immigration training plan called "We Rise!" to help Hispanics take advantage of the immigration relief measures announced by President Barack Obama last November. The effort is designed to reach, mobilize and organize immigrant workers in their workplaces and in their communities. The AFL-CIO on Tuesday in Washington began preparing representatives who have arrived from all over the country to support and teach undocumented workers how to request protection under Deferred Action, or DACA, for children born in the United States and under DAPA for parents of permanent...

"More specifically, Netanyahu's Likud Party won by siphoning voters away from the other right parties who will become its coalition partners. Mainstream Israeli opinion has shifted to the right: to win, Likud didn't need to win over a swath of centrist voters. It needed to jazz up the Right with nasty rhetoric about Palestinians and Arabs." "Meanwhile, Likud is going through a process that some observers have referred to as Tea Party-ization. Younger Israelis tend to be more conservative, increasingly empowering the more right-wing factions inside Likud. That causes center-right voters to defect to centrist parties, pushing the party ever...

Zionist Union’s No. 2 drops bombshell 12 hours before election; Netanyahu, Herzog accuse each other of ‘panicking’. The Zionist Union’s Tzipi Livni announced Monday evening that she would give up the rotation of the premiership with the slate’s leader, Isaac Herzog, an agreement the two made months ago when her Hatnua party merged with his Labor Party. Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign up! In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the party was “panicking,” while Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid and Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett...

If you can't stand the heat, get out of your second kitchen. Ed Miliband today sought to cool the row over his unusual domestic arrangements, insisting he prefers the 'functional kitchenette' where he was seen posing for TV cameras. The Labour leader, who has repeatedly insisted he is not interested in photo opportunities,was filmed sipping tea at home with his wife Justine in a modest kitchen at his £2million North London home. Now it has emerged that the image of the Labour leader as a man of the people with a run-of-the-mill home was not all it appeared. For Mr...

As robots increasingly adopt human qualities, including those that allow them to replace actual human labor, economists are starting to worry.  As the Wall Street Journal reported last week, some “wonder if automation technology is near a tipping point, when machines finally master traits that have kept human workers irreplaceable.”The fears of economists, politicians and workers themselves are way overdone.  They should embrace the rise of robots precisely because they love job creation.  As my upcoming book Popular Economics points out with regularity, abundant job creation is always and everywhere the happy result of technological advances that tautologically lead to job destruction.Robots...

Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog announced Tuesday he will not be traveling to the US to appear before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference, amid growing tensions over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's planned speech to Congress on March 3. "Netanyahu's spin about who is going to Washington must stop," Herzog told a gathering of foreign media in Israel. "My firm position against a nuclear Iran is known by every Israeli and American, including the US president, and I know how to voice it in a sharp, clear manner - from here, not from there." Herzog added: "A...

What is Zionism? The ideological question, rooted in the 19th century, has gained surprising urgency in an Israeli election campaign that seems more open than had been expected. Seeking to take votes from the nationalistic right of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the relatively liberal opposition has rebranded itself as the Zionist Union—sparking a debate about a concept that some considered resolved when the Jewish state was declared and widely recognized in 1948. […] On the left, politicians speak of true Zionism as requiring the establishment of peace and equality in the land, including by making peace with the Palestinians and...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The nation's top labor official flew Monday to California in an attempt to resolve a damaging contract dispute between West Coast dockworkers and their employers. U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez headed for San Francisco, where months-long negotiations between the dockworkers union and a maritime association of companies have come to a halt. So, too, has the movement of billions of dollars of cargo that is supposed to pass through 29 seaports from Southern California to Seattle. The ports are a critical trade link with Asia and the gateway not just for imports such as electronics,...

With four weeks until elections for the 20th Knesset, Likud and Labor-Hatnua appear to be neck and neck. According to a survey conducted by the Midgam Institute for Channel Two, Labor, running under the moniker the "Zionist Camp" just barely inches by Likud with 25 seats. Likud is one behind with 24 mandates. It has been noted that even if Likud comes in behind, the party with the greatest chance of forming a coalition is given first crack, meaning the outcome of the close competition remains up in the air. The joint Arab list comes in as the third largest...

The Cuban government conspired with a Curacao ship repair company to provide practically slave labor fixing up vessels, including Miami-based cruise ships, and kept workers under harsh conditions, a lawsuit filed in U.S. District court in Miami alleges. The civil suit filed before Judge James Lawrence King alleges that up to 100 Cuban shipyard workers are forced to work against their will at Curacao Drydock Co., a ship repair company with an agent in Delray Beach, Klattenberg Marine Associates. The suit, filed by three workers who escaped and now live in Florida, alleges they were ordered to work 16-hour shifts...

Zionist Union connected to V15, an organization working to bring down the government, which has received funding from non-Israeli citizens, Likud charges. Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog has violated laws prohibiting accepting funds from non-Israeli citizens and foreign funded organizations and governments, Likud MKs said Sunday at a Tel Aviv press conference. Deputy ministers Tzipi Hotovely and Ophir Akunis, MKs Miri Regev and Yariv Levin, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's lawyer presented evidence connecting the Zionist Union to V15, an organization working to bring down the government, which has received funding from non-Israeli citizens S. Daniel Abraham and Daniel Lubetzky....

Two New Jersey teens got a lesson in government regulations this week then they decided to go door to door offering snow shoveling services ahead of the Blizzard of 2015. The blizzard ended up being a bit underwhelming in N.J., but forecasts ahead of time predicted it would be a whopper. High school seniors Matt Molinari and Eric Schnepf, both 18, decided to go door to door Monday evening handing out flyers offering snow shoveling services for the next morning, NJ.com reported. Unfortunately they didn't know about their town's ordinance related to soliciting, which prohibits people from selling services door-to-door...

The Likud party intends to hold a press conference in Tel Aviv Sunday in which it will expose details about “V15 – Victory in 2015,” a campaign it says is using foreign money, and lots of it, to boost Labor and Meretz in the elections. Likud has filed a motion to the Elections Committee, according to which V15 is carrying out an illegal indirect campaign with a connection to Labor and Meretz. V15 is “making criminal use of foreign sources of funding,” adding that the sums involved were “very high” and their sources unknown. Likud's press conference will include MK...

The Likud party intends to hold a press conference in Tel Aviv Sunday in which it will expose details about “V15 – Victory in 2015,” a campaign it says is using foreign money, and lots of it, to boost Labor and Meretz in the elections. Likud has filed a motion to the Elections Committee, according to which V15 is carrying out an illegal indirect campaign with a connection to Labor and Meretz. V15 is “making criminal use of foreign sources of funding,” adding that the sums involved were “very high” and their sources unknown. Likud's press conference will include MK...

Poll fever continues ahead of March 17 elections, and while results have shown Likud and Labor neck and neck, the latest survey by Channel 10 gives Labor a full four mandate gap over Likud. According to the poll, conducted by the Dialog Institute under the supervision of Prof. Camil Fuchs, Labor - which erased the word "Zionism" from its Arabic ad campaign - would get 24 mandates, while Likud would only receive 20. Coming in at third Jewish Home stays at 16 seats, followed by a joint Arab list that would receive 12 mandates. Such a joint list - formed...

4 Factors Weighing On Labor Markets—And Implications For Fed Policy (Part 1 of 5) Labor markets are weaker than they appear, leading the Fed toward continued accommodative monetary policy. Still, the central bank may find that weakness difficult to overcome, as much of it stems from serious long-term issues and not merely short-term lack of demand. In recent posts, my colleague Russ Koesterich outlined why the U.S. labor market recovery will continue to frustrate the Fed, and Jeff Rosenberg examined one key reason why the central bank is set to keep rates low for some time. I agree with these...