Minimum Wage | featured news

President Barack Obama on Monday nominated Tom Perez, head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, as labor secretary, a cabinet member who will play a key role in the administration's efforts to raise the minimum wage and reform immigration laws.

House Republicans unanimously voted down a measure Friday that would have raised the federal minimum wage, from its current $7.25 per hour to $10.10 by 2015. Six Democrats joined 227 Republicans in voting it down; 184 Democrats voted yes. The legislation was proposed as a last-minute amendment upon passage of the SKILLS Act, which reauthorizes a jobs training program. The procedural move, known as the motion to recommit, was invoked by Democrats with the instruction that the minimum wage amendment be tacked on to the SKILLS Act, an aide said.

Costco's fiscal second-quarter net income climbed 39 percent as it pulled in more money from membership fees, sales improved and it recorded a large tax benefit. The wholesale club operator earned $547 million, or $1.24 per share, for the period ended Feb. 17. That compares with $394 million, or 90 cents per share, a year earlier.

This isn't the most remarkable business statement ever. In fact, Costco coming out in support of a higher minimum wage is one of the more unsurprising ones. For Costco already pays well above minimum wage anyway. The only people who could be hurt by the rise are Costco's competitors. Costco Wholesale Corp. President and CEO Craig Jelinek is putting his name and company in the forefront of the latest drive to increase the federal minimum wage.

If anything illustrated President Barack Obama's new sense of self-confidence, it was his State of the Union call for an increase in the national minimum wage....

David Frias works two minimum-wage jobs to squeak by in one of the most expensive cities in America. Come New Year's Day, he'll have a few more coins in his pocket as San Francisco makes history by becoming the first city in the nation to scale a $10 minimum wage. The city's hourly wage for its lowest-paid workers will hit $10.24, more than $2 above the California minimum wage and nearly $3 more than the working wage set by the federal government.

A judge on Friday declined to force the state controller to comply with an order by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to pay state workers minimum wage while the state remains without a budget.

As the Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger was the technology of the future, feared by humans. As governor, he's being foiled by the technology of the past.

For the second time in two years, Schwarzenegger has ordered most state workers' pay cut to the federal minimum wage because lawmakers missed their deadline to fix the state's $19 billion budget deficit. The Legislature's failure to act has left the state without a spending plan as the new fiscal year begins.

Politicians destroyed jobs when they increased the minimum wage by more than 40 percent over a three-year period.

On Friday, the federal minimum wage rises for the third year in a row, sparking the perennial argument among economists: Will it help workers at the bottom of the ladder, or will it kill their jobs?