Minimum Wage

Plus, why Kelly Cohen is a treasure.

Plus, why Kelly Cohen is a treasure.

Is the Labor Department scheming to take away restaurant servers' tips? That's the message some labor advocates are sending in response to a proposed rule-making by the Trump administration that would permit kitchen staff in certain states to receive a portion of servers' tips.

As far as lunch deals go, Subway’s $5 footlong sandwich has been a hit with consumers. The company sees the promotion as a way to revive interest in its restaurants, which have struggled to attract diners in the last few years. In January, Subway brought the deal back for a limited time and now…

If there’s one modern pricing phenomenon The Scrapbook loathes, it’s the add-on surcharge—a deceptive little proviso in the consumer/service-provider compact whereby the latter essentially says to the former, “We’re going to fleece you, but not tell you by how much until later.” There’s nothing…

The “Fight for $15” suffered a hit with the release of a study that hints at the negative effect that Seattle’s dramatic minimum wage increase has led to reduced wages for low-income workers.

An email thread released by Wikileaks appears to reveal skepticism in Hillary Clinton's camp about a nationwide $15 minimum wage, reflecting doubt among some liberal economists about the key progressive agenda item.

On Wednesday, Labor Secretary Perez was asked by a reporter about a study done by the American Enterprise Institute on the District of Columbia's minimum wage hike. D.C. raised its minimum wage to $10.50 an hour last July. According to AEI, following the mandatory wage increase, D.C. saw the loss…

Philadelphia

Why have California and New York state moved to implement a $15 minimum wage? They say that it's to provide workers with a "living wage."

California governor Jerry Brown said Monday that his state's new minimum wage law makes more political sense than economic sense.

The bottom line from a reported minimum wage agreement in California? No one knows how it'll be affected.

Amid the closure of 150 or so Walmarts across the country, the booming Washington, D.C., region did not escape without casualties. Two planned stores in poorer parts of town, east of the Anacostia river, will not be built.

Two weekends ago, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City held its annual monetary conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The left flew in hundreds of protesters donning green T-shirts that demanded “Higher Wages for America” and chanting, “We’re Fed Up.” The crowd was an assortment of college kids…

As this father’s day coincides with the summer solstice, it is an appropriate time to recall the astonishingly accurate calculation of the circumference of the Earth that was made on this same day more than 22 centuries ago by one of the founding fathers of mathematics and scientific measurement.

The Democrats have finally decided on the fair, just minimum wage -- $12 per hour. But they fail to make one important point in favor of their demand. Recall the tale of the diligent robbers who spend a weekend drilling into the vault of a posh jeweler, making off with millions in bling for their…

Every liberal knows that poverty breeds crime, although data are unable to show such a correlation, much less causation. This understanding of what is called the root cause of crime was best expressed in one of those Woody Allen flashbacks in which his father is defending the family maid against…

"Why Are So Many Seattle Restaurants Closing Lately?” asks a recent Seattle magazine headline. The Scrapbook is no restaurateur, let alone knowledgeable about the local economy, but we’ll guess it has something to do with the fact that Seattle’s new $15 minimum wage starts phasing in on April 1.…

A poignant notice from the website of Borderland Books, an independent bookstore in San Francisco’s Mission District:

It turns out Elizabeth Warren, favorite senator of the left, is not only a self-described Cherokee without evidence of Cherokee ancestry, but a self-described consumer -finance expert without evidence of any financial savvy. Joining two of her favorite themes, women’s oppression and the cruel…

A Nevada man complained to Vice President Joe Biden that it's hard for small businesses to operate these days:

President Romney, as Marina Koren of the National Journal reports, appeared today on the television show Morning Joe and said:

 In the midst of the Obama administration's latest push to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has released an analysis showing the the percentage of hourly workers earning at or below the minimum wage is down to 4.3 percent, or 3.3…

President Obama talks, talks, talks about jobs. The first 20 minutes of his State of the Union address in January was all about jobs. Immigration reform would “create jobs for everybody,” he said. His energy policy “is creating jobs.” Obama said he’s assigned Vice President Biden to make sure…

Millions of Americans, glutted with benefits that until now have seemed likely to be renewed and renewed again, have suddenly become devoid of ambition, shed the work ethic, and taken to the couch and the TV remote. Or found a back pain or emotional problem that entitles them to the even higher…

Despite the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, the White House is focused on making the argument for raising the minimum wage. In just a few minutes, Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest will be joined on the phone with Governor Malloy of Connecticut, Governor Chafee of Rhode Island, and Governor Shumlin of…

The boss made the argument this morning on ABC's This Week that conservatives have to be serious about making work pay:

President Obama called for a minimum wage hike in his State of the Union Address, but to hear Washington state Democrats tell it, wages aren't the main concern: The real problem is the modern American workplace itself. The minimum wage in Washington state is already $9.32 an hour, more than two…

There is a vintage Corvette parked on the street nearby, a 1977 canary yellow model in perfect condition. The NADA Blue Book says it’s worth around $15,000.

Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee wrote a letter on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to Rep. Dave Camp, Michigan Republican and Ways and Means chairman, urging him to devote some committee time to extending federal unemployment benefits. At issue is the Emergency Unemployment…

The D.C. Council began the year by trying to pass a minimum wage hike intended to bring to Walmart to heel. It is ending the year by pushing a minimum wage increase that would likely benefit Walmart. Such are the tangled politics and economics of the minimum wage issue.

Frankfurt

Yesterday, President Obama signed a number of supposedly uncontroversial bills into law.

In his State of the Union Address, President Obama proposed raising the minimum wage to $9.00 per hour. In support of this initiative, the White House has blogged about it and published a "fact sheet," as well. Acting Secretary of Labor Seth Harris has even conducted a "minimum wage tour" to draw…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Fred Barnes, hosted by Michael Graham:

In tonight's State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama calls for minimum wage to be raised to $9 per hour.

When Heritage Action, the new lobbying arm of the Heritage Foundation, scored the votes of House Republicans last year, a furor erupted. Republicans were incensed because their votes on a number of small, nice-sounding issues were counted, often reducing their conservative rating. A classic example…