Millions of tipped workers in the United States who face high poverty rates and other challenges would fare better if they earned the same government-mandated hourly minimum wage as non-tipped employees, according to a new Economic Policy Institute report. Progress Illinois takes a look at the report's findings and recommendations.
Chicago fast food workers hit the picket lines Thursday as part of a massive, worldwide day of strikes for higher wages and the right to form a union without retaliation. Progress Illinois provides a snapshot of some of the day's protests.
Democrats in the GOP-led U.S. House filed a discharge petition on Wednesday requesting an immediate vote on a bill that would lift the federal minimum hourly wage from $7.25 to $10.10.
About 4.6 million Americans could emerge from poverty if the federal minimum wage was bumped up to $10.10 an hour, a recent study by a University of Massachusetts-Amherst economist shows. Progress Illinois takes a look at the national study as well as the minimum wage battle that has recently cropped up in the race for Illinois governor.
Bumping
the minimum wage up to $10.10 an hour would lift nearly six million
workers out of poverty, according to a new report by Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a national organization dedicated to bettering the wages and working conditions for restaurant workers.
That’s more than half of the 10.4 million individuals classified
as the “working poor” in 2011. People who fall in the working poor category
have been part of the labor force for at least 27 weeks, but their
incomes are below the poverty level, according to the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics.
About 60 percent of the workers who would emerge
from poverty via a minimum wage hike proposed in Congress would be
people of color, the report found.
More than 150 women’s, worker and civil rights organizations sent a letter to members of the U.S. House of Representatives Monday urging them to reject the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013.
Opponents of the bill, which has 168 Republican cosponsors, say it is an empty promise that would do more harm than good for working families.
“The
very fact that this is entitled the Working Families Flexibility Act is
a joke,” U.S. Rep. Donna Edwards, a Democrat from Maryland, said on a
conference call with reporters Monday. “It’s a lot of flexibility for
employers and zero flexibility for working families. In fact, you could
call it the ‘working families to death act,’ because that’s what would
result.”
Bumping
the minimum wage up to $10.10 an hour would lift nearly six million
workers out of poverty, according to a new report by 
More than 150 women’s, worker and civil rights organizations sent 