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President Barack Obama and wife Michelle want their daughters Malia and Sasha to get a taste of what it’s like to work for minimum wage. The president and first lady both worked minimum-wage jobs before they went to law school and tell Parade magazine they want the same sort of experience for their teenage daughters.

Many Massachusetts workers could see a little more money in their paychecks as early as next year. Last week, the Massachusetts Senate agreed to raise the minimum wage to $11.00 per hour and on Wednesday, the House of Representatives agreed. The vote means that Massachusetts will be one step closer to having the highest statewide minimum wage in the country. Under the bill, the minimum wage would be increased over three years, with no tie to inflation. Although the Senate gave their approval last week, not all House members agree it’s a good idea. “This minimum wage was never intended...

Many Seattle workers are about to see their income go way up, after the City Council unanimously passed a $15 minimum wage earlier this month. But faster than you can get a happy meal at McDonald's, the ordinance is facing a legal challenge. “I guarantee not everyone will survive,” warned David Jones, who owns a Subway franchise in Seattle. “This discriminatory law will affect some franchisees and they will go out of business.” The International Franchise Association, representing those concerns, has sued over the wage hike, specifically objecting to the fact the ordinance treats franchises as big businesses and requires...

Republican control of Michigan’s government didn’t prevent a minimum wage increase and an increase in taxes may be coming to fix Michigan’s roads. That’s left many wondering whether the GOP got outmaneuvered or was painted into a corner to prevent a minimum wage ballot initiative that would have been worse. It was both, combined with plenty of politics, wrote Joseph Lehman, president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and Michael LaFaive, director of fiscal policy at the Center, in a recent Wall Street Journal column: Careful economic analysis did not lead the Michigan GOP to hike the minimum wage....

In Washington D.C., low-wage protesters aren’t settling for half-measures. On Thursday, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez unveiled a proposed rule to lift the wage floor to $10.10 per hour, potentially hiking the pay of up to 200,000 employees of federal contractors. Yet the step forward has not satisfied the workers’ organization Good Jobs Nation, which is now demanding the right to collectively bargain with their employers. “I’m grateful to the President for raising my wage to $10 an hour, but it’s not enough to care for my son,” says Rodelma Acosta, a McDonald’s worker at the Pentagon, in a statement from...

Many federal workers and contractors who earn the minimum wage are getting a raise next year. Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez has issued a rule to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10. The higher level applies to new federal construction and service contracts beginning Jan. 1. President Barack Obama had announced the raise earlier this year, but Perez moved to put it into effect. "No person who works a fulltime job should have to live in poverty," Perez said Thursday in a conference call with reporters. "All workers, not just those who work on federal contracts,...

And while tea party groups and talk radio hosts are celebrating the downfall of a Republican member of Congress who came to symbolize the “establishment,” there are indications that this enthusiasm is misplaced. In the wake of his victory, Brat joined MSNBC host Chuck Todd on Wednesday where he received a gentle grilling and was asked for his position on a variety of policy matters. Brat seemed entirely unprepared to have to speak on issues of substance. In fact, he suggested – perhaps (hopefully) jokingly – that he thought Todd invited him on the program merely to celebrate his victory....

A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday challenges Seattle’s adoption of what would be the nation’s highest minimum wage as unfair to small franchises. […] In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, the International Franchise Association, a Washington, D.C.-based business group, said the ordinance “unfairly and irrationally discriminates against interstate commerce generally, and small businesses that operate under the franchise business model specifically.” …

In February the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recorded the lowest percentage of 16- to 19-year-olds working or actively looking for work (32.9%) since the bureau started tracking the data in 1948... Over the past two years, the BLS has recorded some of the worst labor participation rates for 20- to 24-year-olds since 1973... Looking at the seasonally unadjusted data—which is what the BLS makes publicly available—for 25- to 29-year-olds, the April 2014 labor-participation rate was the lowest the BLS has recorded since it started tracking the data in 1982 ... Nonetheless, various states and municipalities have increased their minimum...

Top Republican officials supported a higher minimum wage and tied it to inflation to get Democrats to support a measure to double the gas tax and secure Gov. Rick Snyder the extra money he wants for road funding, according to a widely accepted story out of Lansing. The same story was being repeated in conversations at the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce's annual Mackinac Policy Conference last week. Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, introduced Senate Bill 934 because Michigan's various business groups had decided they couldn't risk the possibility that the minimum wage increase proposal would pass in November....

About 50 years ago, archeologists discovered a scroll with hieroglyphics that appear to be a young girl, kneeling down while holding an oval object above her head. Next to the girl is what seems to be a young boy who is falling violently to the ground beside her. Seeming to appreciate the significance, this mysterious message was whisked away by aides to then-President Lyndon Johnson. Just last week, the riddle reappeared in an unauthorized leak to an investigative reporter by an unidentified employee of the Democratic National Party. It seems that many years ago the papyrus image was interpreted by...

According to this, that whole minimum wage hike that liberals have been losing their minds over and screaming for - and they finally got it out in Seattle - well, we're seeing how that's working out for them. The Seattle suburb of SeaTac got what they wished for - the minimum wage was raised to $15 - and months later, they're seeing the ramifications. Here's what's happened so far:

In their reporting of Seattle’s unanimous vote Monday to raise the minimum wage within Seattle to $15 per hour, USA Today began their article with an interview of a $9.47/hour, economically-uneducated McDonald’s employee: “Martina Phelps says the Seattle City Council's vote today on a historic plan to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour could change her life.” Well, yes, it could, Martina, but probably not in the way you were hoping. The city council of Seattle, composed of the kind of politicians who learned everything they know about economics from studying celebrity gossip and attending union meetings, believes...

Should San Diego match Seattle's $15 per hour minimum wage? Poll here

At the start of the year, the Seattle suburb of SeaTac raised the area’s minimum wage to $15, and the consequences are now starting to be felt. And it’s not just the unions who championed the effort, or those who still have jobs, that are feeling them. Over the last few months, a few things have happened: Managers have taken more responsibilities on themselves, instead of hiring more workers. Businesses have laid off workers, or eliminated their plans to hire more. Area parking now comes with an added “living-wage surcharge.” Hotels have cut employee benefits, free food, and overtime. Shocking:...

Last January, SeaTac implemented a $15 per hour minimum wage for hospitality and transportation workers. The consequences to the drastic hike in wages are just beginning to be realized—and it’s not pretty. A writer for NW Asian Weekly recently blogged about her experience attending an event at a SeaTac hotel. She asked employees if they were “happy with the $15 wage.” The ensuingconversations, “It sounds good, but it’s not good,” the woman said. “Why?” I asked. “I lost my 401k, health insurance, paid holiday, and vacation,” she responded. “No more free food,” she added. “The hotel used to feed her. Now, she...

Last week, Michigan became the latest of a handful of states to officially raise its minimum wage this year, with a gradual four-year phase-in that will take its floor from $7.40 up to $9.25 an hour — but over in the city of Seattle, things just got real. Say hello to what will soon become the highest minimum wage in the nation, via the AP: The issue has dominated politics in the liberal municipality for months. Mayor Ed Murray, who was elected last year, had promised in his campaign to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. A newly...

It turns out that leftists can’t repeal the law of supply and demand. In the Seattle suburb of Seatac, adjacent to the airport and full of parking lots, hotels, and restaurants with many low wage employees, the minimum wage was hiked to $15 an hour, and the results of this social experiment are coming in. United Liberty reports: A February report from the Seattle Times revealed: At the Clarion Hotel off International Boulevard, a sit-down restaurant has been shuttered, though it might soon be replaced by a less-labor-intensive cafe… Other businesses have adjusted in ways that run the gamut from putting more work in...

**SNIP** "If stimulating the economy were just as easy as taking from Jim and giving to Joe, don't you think communism would've worked out? Thanks progressive lefties, I'm sure this is making businesses feel secure about moving into Seattle. "Silliness," Shapiro concluded. Boze wondered why Seattle didn't just force the $15 wage immediately, if 70 percent of voters like it. In fact, Thursday's committee compromise is a disaster for the $15 Now group, which is pushing a ballot initiative for November that would enact the $15 wage on Jan. 1, 2015. "They're not interested in income equality," Boze said. "They're...

… In 1979, teenagers held 26% of all low-wage jobs, while adults aged 25-64 made up less than half of such workers, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which analyzed the low wage workforce over a 30-year span. Today, only 12% of low paying jobs are held by teenagers, while adults make up 60% of them. Also, only 20% of such workers had attended some college in 1979. Today, it’s 33%. […] A key argument behind the latest wave of strikes to raise wages to $15 an hour is that fast food workers these days are no...