National News

A labor of love - and low pay

Op-ed by Renee Loth
Boston Globe, Oct 23 2009

A RECENT report in the medical journal The Lancet estimates that half the babies born in the United States this year will live to age 100. That means plenty more work for people like Evelyn Coke. Coke was a home care aide who spent more than three decades taking care of elderly shut-ins on New York’s Long Island. She bathed, dressed, and cooked for them, kept an eye on their prescriptions, and saved the health care system millions by keeping them out of nursing homes. For this the Jamaican immigrant was paid roughly $7 an hour.

Revised formula puts 1 in 6 Americans in poverty

By Hope Yen
Associated Press, Oct 20 2009
Washington -- The level of poverty in America is even worse than first believed.

A revised formula for calculating medical costs and geographic variations show that approximately 47.4 million Americans last year lived in poverty, 7 million more than the government's official figure.

$7.25 An Hour

By Patricia Smith
New York Times Upfront (Scholastic Magazine), Oct 5 2009
This summer's minimum-wage hike means more money in the pockets of working teens. But is there a downside?

Sixteen-year-old Steve Wayne, who worked this summer as a lifeguard and swim teacher in Idaho Falls, was thrilled to see an extra $20 in his paycheck when the federal minimum wage increased in July.

"When you're getting paid minimum wage, anything helps," Wayne told the Idaho Falls Post Register. He's one of several hundred thousand American teens who earn the minimum wage.

New 2008 poverty, income data reveal only tip of the recession iceberg

By Heidi Shierholz
Economic Policy Institute, Sep 10 2009
An additional 2.6 million people slipped below the poverty line, as the poverty rate increased from 12.5% to 13.2% between 2007 and 2008. Poverty is now at a higher rate than the country faced four decades ago, in 1968...
Furthermore, it is important to note that the federal poverty threshold as currently measured is widely understood by poverty researchers to be a vastly outdated and inadequate measure... Poverty experts often use twice the poverty line as a more accurate threshold for material deprivation... In 2008, 31.9% —96 million people — were living below the twice-poverty threshold...

Top 1 Percent of Americans Reaped Two-Thirds of Income Gains in Last Economic Expansion

By Avi Feller and Chad Stone
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Sep 9 2009
Two-thirds of the nation’s total income gains from 2002 to 2007 flowed to the top 1 percent of U.S. households, and that top 1 percent held a larger share of income in 2007 than at any time since 1928, according to an analysis of newly released IRS data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. During those years, the Piketty-Saez data also show, the inflation-adjusted income of the top 1 percent of households grew more than ten times faster than the income of the bottom 90 percent of households. More

Faith and labor leaders make case for living wages

By Theresa Laurence
Tennessee Register, Sep 4 2009
As the country celebrates Labor Day on Sept. 7, a national holiday dedicated to the achievements of the American worker, many low wage employees will not be enjoying a relaxing day off. Instead, they will be cleaning hotels, washing dishes, and stocking shelves for $7.25 an hour.

A full time worker earning minimum wage, which was raised from $6.55 to $7.25 in July, will make only $15,080 annually before taxes.

Working Without Laws

By Annette Bernhardt, Ruth Milkman & Nik Theodore
The Nation, Sep 4 2009

For the past thirty years, the gospel of lean and mean has reordered the world of work, setting off a race to the bottom in which employers circumvent and evade standards that once seemed inviolate. That race has now taken us to a logical low point: many employers are ignoring workplace laws altogether.

Low-Wage Workers Are Often Cheated, Study Says

By Steven Greenhouse
New York Times, Sep 2 2009
Low-wage workers are routinely denied proper overtime pay and are often paid less than the minimum wage, according to a new study based on a survey of workers in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The study, the most comprehensive examination of wage-law violations in a decade, also found that 68 percent of the workers interviewed had experienced at least one pay-related violation in the previous work week.

Honoring Ted Kennedy

Aug 29 2009

"My father taught me to treat everyone I meet, no matter what station in life, with the same dignity and respect... I once told him that he accidentally left some money, I remember this when I was a little kid, on the sink in our hotel room. And he replied 'Teddy, let me tell you something. Making beds all day is back-breaking work. The woman who has to clean up after us today has a family to feed.'" - Ted Kennedy Jr., Aug. 29, 2009

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