Free Republic

As East and Gulf Coast ports begin to operate as normal again, one of the country’s top entrepreneurs is weighing in on “the trouble” with union workers’ demands. “The trouble with East Coast ports is they’re very old, they’re very inefficient,” O’Leary Ventures Chairman and “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary said on “Varney & Co.” Friday. “And when you start to compare them against other international ports like Singapore and the other Asian ports,” he continued, “we’re just not holding much up against them. And that’s very bad for productivity.” US dockworkers returned to work Friday morning after reaching a...

Bosses are quietly trying to reset worker pay levels, saying the era of overpaying for talent is over. Pay for many white-collar recruits shrank last year, and now wages for new hires in construction, manufacturing, food and other blue-collar sectors appear to be ebbing too, according to an analysis of millions of jobs posted on ZipRecruiter.com. Job seekers report seeing roles that once offered salaries between $175,000 and $200,000 a year ago now being advertised for tens of thousands of dollars less, a change that has had them rethinking their pay expectations. Companies are also moving job openings to lower-cost...

Fast-food restaurants survive by providing affordable, quick, and convenient meals, but cost inflation is now pushing their business models to the brink.It has become more expensive to eat out over the past five years, with food away from home increasing by 30 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In just the past year, the cost of eating at a fast-food restaurant has increased by more than that of a full-service restaurant.Within the consumer price index, the limited-service meals category (food that is ordered at a counter and taken to go) rose by 4.3 percent year over year in...

About 13,500 hotel workers across Boston, Honolulu, Providence and San Francisco will vote on whether to strike this week as they push for significant wage increases and protections against job cuts. Employees at leading chains including Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Omni will decide in the coming days whether to approve the walkouts... If workers vote to authorize a strike in the first four cities, one can be called at any time once their contract expires, with some already having expired, and others set to expire by the end of August.... Theresa Fiorino, a room service cashier at the Hilton Boston...

The soaring cost of living under Joe Biden is taking a toll on blue collar Hollywood, driving the labor unions that represent production crews to push for higher wage increase guarantees from the major studios. IATSE and the Teamsters — which both endorsed Biden in 2020 — are currently in the thick of contract negotiations with Hollywood studios as the industry continues to reel from dramatic budget reductions that have resulted in far fewer movie and TV shoots. Add to that the skyrocketing costs of consumer goods and services and you have a recipe for widespread financial misery in what...

Approximately 10,000 jobs have reportedly been slashed at California fast food eateries after the minimum wage was hiked to $20. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) law to pay workers $20 an hour went into effect on April 1 and has apparently taken a devastating toll on the industry, Fox Business reported Wednesday. The outlet continued: The California Business and Industrial Alliance (CABIA) said nearly 10,000 jobs have been cut across fast food restaurants since Newsom signed California Assembly Bill 1228 into law last year. To highlight what it says are the unintended consequences of the law, CABIA has taken out an...

Under Bidenomics and Fed monetary “policies”, we now have the wreck of the US middle class. To begin with, America’s paychecks are bigger than 40 years ago, but purchasing power of those larger paychecks is about the sames as it was 40 years ago. Great job Washington DC!!! … NOT!!!! Meanwhile, credit card delinquencies are at the highest level since 1991. Americans are feeling extreme financial stress. Coping with Bidennomics and The Fed has been most difficult. Especially if you listened to Biden’s D-Day speech (almost stolen word-for-word from a Ronald Reagan speech). Demented Joe Biden being led by the...

We are in an election year. President Biden, a seasoned politician, has failed miserably in tackling inflation and is now attempting to shift blame for "Bidenflation" onto Trump, a move even noted by The New York Times, which dubbed it Biden's Plan B. Commenting on the latest CPI release, President Biden said: We’re better situated than we were when we took office where we— inflation was skyrocketing. And we have a plan to deal with it, whereas the opposition — my opposition talks about two things. They just want to cut taxes for the wealthy and raise taxes on other...

Prices for burgers, fries and other fast food items have increased at various restaurant chains across California, according to a recent report. A New York Post investigation revealed that some fast food chains in the Los Angeles area raised prices on April 1, after new California statewide legislation went into effect Monday enforcing a $20 minimum wage for restaurants that have at least 60 locations nationwide, except those that make and sell their own bread. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the legislation, AB 1228, into law in September. In addition to the pay raises, it also establishes a "Fast Food Council,"...

Migration cuts wages, Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, said Tuesday as he announced plans to trim his unpopular migration inflows that have forced his nation backward. “Increasingly, more and more businesses are relying on temporary foreign workers in a way that is driving down wages in some sectors,” Trudeau told reporters on April 2 as he announced plans to slightly reduce his mass migration that has imposed much poverty and chaotic diversity on Canadians. He continued: So we want to get those numbers down. It’s a responsible approach to immigration that conntinues on our permanent [immigration] residents as we have,...

Lyft and Uber said they will cease operations in Minneapolis after the city’s council voted Thursday to override a mayoral veto and require that ride-hailing services increase driver wages to the equivalent of the local minimum wage of $15.57 an hour. Lyft called the ordinance “deeply flawed,” saying in a statement that it supports a minimum earning standard for drivers but not the one passed by the council. “It should be done in an honest way that keeps the service affordable for riders,” Lyft said. “This ordinance makes our operations unsustainable, and as a result, we are shutting down operations...

Silence is not golden. Particularly when it comes to a silent DEPRESSION. Talking is cheap, people follow like sheep. Particularly when are told by Biden, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and NY Times economic spinster Paul Krugman says its the best economy in decades. It isn’t. In fact, the US is in a silent depression. Typically, a recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. If we use 2 consecutive quarter of negative GDP growth, we are not in a recession. But …. Challenges include increasing part-time employment in recent months, declining household employment in three of the...

Last fall’s contentious United Auto Workers’ strike changed Ford’s relationship with the union to the point where it will “think carefully” about where it builds future vehicles, Ford’s top executive said Thursday. CEO Jim Farley told the Wolfe Research Global Auto Conference in New York that the company always took pride in its relationship with the UAW, having avoided strikes since the 1970s. But last year, Ford’s highly profitable factory in Louisville, Kentucky, was the first truck plant that the UAW shut down with a strike. Farley said as the company looks at the transition from internal combustion to electric...

Doctors in California who mail abortion pills to patients in other states will be protected from prosecution. Workers will receive more paid sick leave on the heels of a big year for labor. And companies can’t fire employees for using marijuana outside of work. These are among the hundreds of laws that take effect Jan. 1 in the nation’s most populous state. Each year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs hundreds of laws passed by the state Legislature. Most take effect Jan. 1 the following year. But sometimes lawmakers will delay a law’s effective date for a variety of reasons, including...

Minimum-wage workers in 22 states are going to see more money in their paychecks in the new year. Those increases will affect an estimated 9.9 million workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which estimates that those bumped wages will add up to an additional $6.95 billion in pay.

With 60% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, most U.S. households could use a raise. But an arbitrary, one-size-fits-all increase in the minimum wage imposed by lawmakers in Washington would only exacerbate the struggles of these households. According to a new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, proposed legislation to increase the federal minimum wage to $17 per hour by 2029, a jump of 134%, would reduce employment and increase prices, interest rates, and federal deficits. Any one of these consequences of the so-called Raise the Wage Act of 2023 would be bad news; all four together would add insult...

President Biden on Thursday issued an executive order implementing his plan to provide civilian federal workers with an average 5.2% pay raise next month. As first proposed in his fiscal 2024 budget plan last March, the increase amounts to a 4.7% across-the-board boost to basic pay, alongside an average 0.5% increase in locality pay. As authorized in the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which Biden is expected to sign this week, military service personnel also will see an average 5.2% pay raise next year. An average 5.2% pay increase marks the largest authorized for federal workers since the Carter...

Story by nluna@insider.com (Nancy Luna) • 5h Two Pizza Hut operators in California are eliminating their in-house delivery services at hundreds of stores, resulting in more than 1,200 driver layoffs, according to federal employment notices reviewed by Business Insider. The layoffs, effective throughout February, affect Pizza Hut delivery drivers across California, including at Sacramento, Palm Springs, and Los Angeles locations. The Pizza Hut franchisees are reducing staff as fast-food chains in the state brace for a new law that increases worker pay to $20 an hour in April. "PacPizza, LLC, operating as Pizza Hut, has made a business decision to...

Twenty-two states are set to increase their minimum wages at the start of 2024. Come January 1, nine states as well as DC will have minimum wages of at least $15, according to an analysis by DailyMail.com. Washington State will introduce a minimum wage of $16.28 an hour, making it the nation's highest. Next is California which will have a minimum wage of $16.00 an hour. There is no state minimum wage law in five Southern states: Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, or Tennessee. In those states minimum wages therefore default to the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour -...

Where has all the GDP gone? Not to wages. As expected, Q3 Real GDP was revised upwards to 5.2% annualized. Of course, this shatters JKP’s talking points that Biden inherited a train wreck of an economy from Trump. Q3 2020 Real GDP grew at over 30%. And on a year-over-year (YoY) basis, US real GDP grew at 3.0% in Q3. Unfortunately, real hourly compensation grew at a measly 0.6% YoY. Meanwhile, home prices have hit an all-time high. Too bad real wages are so low.