Free Republic

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,...

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose last week, but the underlying trend continued to point to a firming labor market. While jobless claims have been choppy in recent weeks because of problems seasonally adjusting the data around moving holidays such as Easter and Passover, they have continued to suggest the jobs market was strengthening.

Medicaid enrollment surged by more than 1 million people in April, bringing the total growth in the state-federal health insurance program for the poor since September to about 6 million, the Obama administration said Wednesday. Overall, Medicaid enrollment in 47 states and the District of Columbia topped 65 million in April, compared to 59 million in September for those same states, according to the report from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Connecticut, Maine and North Dakota did not report their Medicaid enrollments. “This is good news,” said Rachel Klein, director of organizational strategy & enrollment at Families USA,...

With the EPA's proposed new power plant rules posing a potential threat to Democrats running in coal-reliant states, Alison Lundergan Grimes is fighting back early -- and fiercely -- by attacking the president and the EPA in a new radio ad, unveiled Wednesday. In the ad, which will air mainly throughout Kentucky's coal counties in the east and west of the state, Grimes takes President Obama to task for the new regulations on carbon emissions, which would be phased in over the next 15 years. "Mr. President, Kentucky has lost one-third of our coal jobs in just the last three...

U.S. companies hired far fewer workers than expected in May, but an acceleration in services sector growth supported views the economy was regaining strength after sagging early this year. While other data on Wednesday suggested a widening trade gap could weigh on growth in the second quarter, a jump in imports pointed to a welcome pick-up in domestic demand.

Private-sector hiring in May hit the slowest pace in four months as service providers decreased their rate of hiring, according to data released Wednesday morning. Employers in the private sector added 179,000 jobs in May — the fewest new positions since January — down from 215,000 in April, Automatic Data Processing Inc. reported. Economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires had expected a May gain of 210,000 private-sector jobs, compared with an originally estimated increase of 220,000 jobs in April.

U.S. productivity in the first quarter declined by an even sharper 3.2% annual rate - the worst in six years - as workers spent more time on the job producing fewer goods during an unusually stormy weather, newly revised data show. Companies across the U.S. suffered severe disruptions in the first quarter because of one of the most brutal winters in decades, so the loss in productivity is likely to be mostly if not entirely reversed in the second quarter.

There is little doubt among the students in Brandon Cone’s engineering class at Campbell County High School that a war is being waged against coal. The children of the mechanics who fix the mines’ great diesel trucks, the welders who staff their machine shops and the railroad employees who see the final product shipped across the country and beyond have obvious pride in the local industry. “We power a lot of the country just from Gillette,” said Corey Silver, a junior whose father works at the Cordero Rojo mine, a comment widely echoed by his peers. The students’ pride in...

Starting August 1, the left-wing Ohio newspaper, The Toledo Blade, intends to lay off about 130 of its unionized employees due to a permanent shutdown of its Toledo production center that handles printing and inserting. ... In 2013, The Blade lost $8.5 million and has been losing millions for years. As of now there are no plans that will affect the advertising and news-gathering departments. In 2012, The Toledo Blade urged it readers to re-elect President Obama, arguing in part that "He has dealt effectively with economic recession at home

The Department of Agriculture has warned of sticker shock facing home chefs on the eve of the Memorial Day holiday weekend, the unofficial start of the U.S. summer grilling season. The agency said conditions in California could have "large and lasting effects on U.S. fruit, vegetable, dairy and egg prices," as the most populous U.S. state struggles through what officials are calling a catastrophic drought. The consumer price index (CPI) for U.S. beef and veal is up almost 10 percent so far in 2014, reflecting the fastest increase in retail beef prices since the end of 2003. Prices, even after...

... Personal income tax collections plunged last month from a year earlier in 27 of 32 states for which Reuters was able to collect data. That's most of the 43 states that levy income taxes, and drops were as high as 50 percent. While many states predicted tough times this year, a handful including New Jersey and Pennsylvania is set to face hard decisions on either cutting spending or raising taxes. By the end of last year, 26 states had still not seen overall tax revenue return to pre-recession levels, according to recent data from Pew Charitable Trusts.

The Cadillac ELR has been on sale for just five months, but General Motors is now offering dealers a $5,000 incentive to offer test drives in the Chevrolet Volt-based plug-in hybrid. To receive the incentive, dealers have until June 2 to designate ELRs in their current inventory as test vehicles, after which each test car has to log a minimum of 750 test-drive miles. The incentives could be because 1,700 ELR coupes remained unsold in dealer inventories at the end of April. At current sales rates, that’s a 725-day supply, which is almost exactly two years’ worth of cars.

Last month, Washington's top environment advocate went to the Cleveland Clinic to talk about how President Barack Obama's landmark efforts to crack down on power-plant carbon emissions would ease a range of respiratory illnesses. The proposed curbs will form the cornerstone of Obama's climate action plan, a multi-layered blueprint for fighting global warming unveiled a year ago. The plan is critical to fulfilling U.S. commitments to reduce emissions agreed to at an international forum in Copenhagen in 2009. It is also key to carving out a legacy for Obama's second term.

For Michael Powell, a 53-year-old ex-convict, his tent off the highway in Camden, N.J., is what he has called home for nearly a decade. But on Tuesday, he and dozens of others living in homeless encampments known as “tent cities” throughout Camden were forced out—leaving many of them homeless all over again. The eviction was conducted by the state of New Jersey, as well as Camden county and city, for health and safety reasons. […] Amid the commotion on Tuesday, Gino Lewis, director of housing at the Camden County Improvement Authority, assured people that the county would work to find...

The Environmental Protection Agency has handed out $3.6 million to 18 different community organizations across the country to train college graduates, the unemployed, low-income people and others to take on green jobs. To date, the EPA has funded 237 job training programs grants totalling more than $50 million to train 12,800 people how to work in the green industry. Of those trained, about 9,100 obtained green jobs — a 71 percent success rate at a cost of $5,500 in taxpayer funds per job. Last year, the free-market Institute for Energy Research estimated that the Department of Energy spent $26 billion...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed changes to oil refinery rules that would compel operators to monitor benzene emissions, upgrade storage tank emission controls, ensure waste gases are properly destroyed and adopt new emission standards for delayed coking units. The move is part of a consent decree that resolved a lawsuit filed by nonprofit environmental attorneys with Earthjustice and the Environmental Integrity Project.

On Thursday, fast-food workers in more than 30 countries across six continents will take coordinated action on an unprecedented scale. In the United States, they will walk off their jobs in 150 cities — the largest strike ever. Workers around the world will join these protests in 80 cities. The protestors are set to take over a McDonald’s during lunchtime rush hour in Belgium; hold flash-mobs at McDonald’s restaurants across the Philippines, and conduct a teach-in at McDonald’s headquarters in New Zealand. The spread of the fast-food movement to the global stage is notable for the speed at which it...

The cold and wet winter set the U.S. economy back, but it didn’t knock it off the rails, according to Ted Wieseman, an economist for Morgan Stanley and the winner of the April Forecaster of the Month award from MarketWatch. The slow start to the year, with gross domestic product likely contracting in the first quarter, means growth in 2014 won’t hit the 3% pace that Wieseman and many other economists had expected. In fact, the economy may grow less in 2014 than the 2.6% growth posted in 2013.

U.S. retail sales growth slowed in April, with consumers shopping less online and cutting back on purchases of furniture and electronics. The Commerce Department says retail sales rose just 0.1 percent last month, after surging 1.5 percent in March following a harsh winter that had curtailed shopping. The modest sales suggest that consumers continue to be cautious during the still-slow, nearly 5-year recovery.