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The introduction of a nationwide minimum wage in Germany has spurred a growth in worker productivity, according to a study published Tuesday. The government in Berlin first established a minimum wage in 2015, requiring firms to pay their employees €8.50 ($9.20) per hour. At the time, around 15% of the German workforce was earning less than that amount. Research by University College London (UCL) and the German Institute for Labor Market Research (AIB) found that the change did not result in higher joblessness among low-wage workers — one of the fears before the policy was rolled out. […] Instead, their...

MESQUITE, Texas — North Texans voting in the second-largest Super Tuesday state in just two weeks arrived at the dirt-floored rodeo arena 13 miles east of Downtown Dallas to hear Democratic frontrunner Bernie Sanders at a campaign rally Friday night.“I have never been to a rodeo in my life but I do work in Washington, DC and I do hear a lot of bullshit,” Sanders told the crowd of nearly 5,000 people before confidently announcing, “We’re gonna win Texas.”Polling released the same day tells a different story. The latest University of Texas/ Texas Tribune poll of Democratic voters in Texas...

This is a new one. The New York Times headline read: "Minimum Wage Raises Could Lower Suicide Rates, Study Says." But there was a subheadline: "It was the latest study to suggest that effects of wage increases reach beyond economic welfare, but some experts pushed back on the findings." Let us "push back." The study was published in January in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. The Times article noted that 47,000 Americans committed suicide in 2017 and said: "The new study examined suicide rates from 1990 through 2015 across all 50 states and Washington, and measured how they...

* Fewer suicides occur when minimum wages are higher during periods of elevated unemployment, according to a new study. * Every $1 increase in the minimum wage is associated with a 6% reduction in suicide for high school grads. * Boosting the minimum wage by $1 could have saved 27,550 lives from 1990 to 2015, the study says. Raising the federal minimum wage, which hasn't increased in more than a decade, might accomplish far more than simply offering U.S. workers a boost in pay. New research suggests that lifting the baseline wage could also stop thousands of Americans from killing...

In general, it sucks to get fired. Seldom do I celebrate someone getting their job torched—oftentimes liberal media outlets bring it upon themselves, but it’s still never a good thing, especially around the holidays. And it’s maddening to a certain extent when you know jobs will be lost because Democrats keep peddling trash economic policies. The minimum wage hike is the mecca of all things bad. These jobs aren’t meant to support families, but Democrats seem keen on peddling this policy that will lead to job losses, cut hours, and smaller paychecks. It’s already happened in New York. In Seattle,...

Floridians will vote next year on whether to raise the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026, an amendment initiative led by Orlando attorney John Morgan that’s already drawing opposition from Republican leaders and the business community. The initiative that will be called Amendment 2 made the November ballot after its wording was approved by the Florida Supreme Court in a decision released Thursday. Court review was the last obstacle to getting the measure on the ballot after Morgan’s Florida For A Fair Wage collected more than 770,000 of the required 766,200 signatures. The amendment would raise the...

Biden, who often touts himself as a “union man” on the campaign trail, made the promise while speaking at a rally organized by the progressive organization Fight for 15 in Los Angeles, California. During his remarks, which came only hours before the Democrat presidential primary debate, the former vice president channeled his more progressive rivals when stating that fight for $15-an-hour was about more than economics. “It’s not just the numbers, and by the way there’s been a war on fast food workers for a long, long time,” the former vice president said, before lambasting companies like Chuck E. Cheese...

Here’s another volley in the debate over the “Fight for $15”: As the federal minimum wage rose from 1989-2013, small businesses in affected states suffered “lower bank credit, higher loan defaults, lower employment, a lower entry and a higher exit rate.” That’s according to a study last week from the National Bureau of Economic Research. The analysis by three professors at the Georgia Institute of Technology exploits the fact that many states—now more than half—set their own minimum wages higher than the federal standard. This provides a natural control group. When the nationwide minimum goes up, how do the states...

This city’s minimum wage is rising to $16.39 an hour on Jan. 1. Instead of receiving a bigger paycheck, I’m left without any pay at all due to the policy change. That’s because the restaurant where I’ve worked for six years is closing as a consequence of the city’s harmful minimum-wage experiment. I work for Tom Douglas, one of the best-known restaurateurs in Seattle. Mr. Douglas is in many ways responsible for the city’s reputation as a foodie paradise, and he recently celebrated his 30th anniversary in business. He’s a great boss, and his employees tend to stay at the...

Cierra Brown is trying to do all she can on her own, but it rarely feels like she’s doing enough. Cierra Brown estimates her commute to work would only take about 25 minutes if she had a car. That’s part of the reason she returned to McDonald’s in January: Her car had broken down and she needed money. But at McDonald’s, Brown only earns $9.50 per hour as a cashier, which barely helps cover rent and is far from enough to solve her vehicular woes. Without a car, one of Brown’s main headaches is getting to work. Her typical bus...

A $15 minimum wage has already destroyed hundreds of small businesses and many more jobs in cities like New York and San Francisco, and – as interest grows within state and local governments – it now threatens the livelihoods of millions of workers nationwide. New research by my colleagues and me at the American Consumer Institute examines four major labor market policies – minimum wage hikes, predictive scheduling, mandatory paid leave and joint-employer regulations – and finds these labor regulations will lead to four million fewer jobs. The study estimates that half of these job losses will result as more...

Under pressure from activists, Target announced in September 2017 that it would hike wages for all 323,000 employees to at least $15 per hour by 2020. This was a major victory for the "Fight for $15" movement—a win that was supposed to have repercussions for retail and fast food workers everywhere. "Our momentum is unstoppable," a Minneapolis Fight for $15 organizer told Common Dreams. Two years later, the story is pretty different. "I got that dollar raise but I'm getting $200 less in my paycheck," a Target employee named Heather told CNN. Heather's hours have been cut from about 40...

The dozens of former and current Target employees interviewed said that less hours have made it difficult or even impossible for them to pay their bills or get health insurance. “I got that dollar raise but I’m getting $200 less in my paycheck,” said Heather, a employee whose hours were cut from full-time to 20 hours per week. “I have no idea how I’m going to pay rent or buy food.” Target employees become eligible for health insurance if they average over 30 hours a week. However, a number of employees who were working more than that say they have...

Last December, the final phase of increasing the minimum wage in New York City to $15 per hour went into effect. (Well, at least the last stage for now.) It was considered a huge victory for the Fight for 15 crowd and, presumably, a big win for workers, particularly in the foodservice industry. So how has that been working out since then? As the New York Post reported this weekend, the law of unintended consequences has come roaring into play. They feature the story of one taco and tequila joint on the upper west side that’s been doing a thriving...

Personal-injury lawyer John Morgan has spent millions in a push to get a $15 per hour minimum wage measure on the ballot in Florida. Amid concerns working class pay has not kept pace with costs of living, seven states and Washington, D.C., have voted to boost their minimum wages to $15 per hour. John Morgan has gathered the 766,200 signatures needed to let voters decide whether to raise the wage next year. Now, the Orlando-based personal injury attorney waits on the state Supreme Court to decide if it appears on the ballot. Morgan, who runs a firm employing more than...

As predicted, the $15 minimum wage is forcing city employers to cut staff, shorten or scrap shifts, hike prices, cancel expansion plans and even close locations. The mandate took effect Jan. 1 for city businesses with 11 or more employees — and will hit even the smallest businesses come Dec. 31. Employers say they’re struggling to adjust to the whopping wage boost and making major shifts in plans. Yes, lefty and union-backed economists released a report last week claiming a local restaurant-jobs boom. But the city’s Independent Budget Office put the 2018 drop at 6,000 jobs, or about 3.4 percent....

Hypocrite labor unions are exempt from the very same local minimum wage laws that they helped to pass Labor unions are responsible for passing local minimum wage laws in cities all over the U.S.But in many of these cities, unions are exempt from the very same minimum wage laws that they helped to pass.According to this article from the Washington Examiner, hypocrite unions are exempt from the local minimum wage laws in Chicago, Illinois, SeaTac, Washington, and Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, as well as the California cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Long Beach, San Jose, Richmond, and Oakland.Why would unions support...

Let’s be clear: Mayor Peter Buttigieg’s off-color remark equating minimum wage opposition to being an oppressor of the poor isn’t just ignorant. It ignores elementary school economics. Politicians like to look at the minimum wage debate and only talk about the worker. For Democrats, this is a household talking point designed to earn votes. But it’s lacking reality. You can’t analyze only a third of the equation and expect to produce a winning formula. Creating jobs is a process that involves entrepreneurs, workers and consumers. All three of these items dictate the worth of an employee, not just what the...

BY ADELE PETERS Los Angeles county, where the minimum wage is currently $14.25 an hour, studies suggest that Uber and Lyft drivers often make far less. In El Monte, an industrial city east of Los Angeles, the city council just unanimously voted to change that, telling city officials to begin drafting a law that would guarantee drivers a minimum of $30 an hour. While other cities have set minimum wages for ride-hail drivers, this would be the highest in the country, and it comes after pressure from the Mobile Workers Alliance, a project from the Service Employees International Union, Local...

The lede from this Wall Street Journal article says it all: "More than six months after the $15 minimum wage went into effect in New York City, business leaders and owners say the increased labor costs have forced them to cut staff, eliminate work shifts and raise prices."Duh.Sarah McNally, owner of McNally Jackson Books, says, "There’s absolutely no benefit to being a retail business in New York." The unions, the conniving politicians, the anti-capitalist activists who were the driving force behind the "Fight for 15" movement have done a great job. They have all benefited while the workers and businesses...