Massachusetts

Contact: Ariel Jacobson

Associate for Economic Justice

Unitarian Universalist Service Committee

689 Massachusetts Avenue

Cambridge, MA 02139

Email: ajacobson@uusc.org

Phone: 617-868-6600

UUSC10in2010

July 24th: National Day of Action to Raise the Minimum Wage

By Shaya French
Massachusetts Kids Count Blog, Jul 24 2013

When we talk about the minimum wage, the conversation is often about working adults and leaves out the children in Massachusetts who are also being supported on $8.00 an hour. According to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, about one in five minimum or low-wage workers in the Commonwealth is a parent and approximately 180,000 children in Massachusetts have at least one parent who earns under $11.00 per hour. ...

Empty Anniversary: Minimum Wage Stuck as Poverty Climbs

Institute for Public Accuracy, Jul 23 2012

Excerpt: Ariel Jacobson is senior associate in the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee’s Economic Justice Program, an international human rights organization based in Cambridge, Mass. and is on the board on Let Justice Roll. She said today: “Raising the minimum wage is an economic necessity and a moral issue that should weigh on our national conscience.

Celebrate Minimum Wage 100th Anniversary With Raise

Op-ed by Holly Sklar
Distributed in Massachusetts by American Forum: Fall River Herald News, Taunton Daily Gazette, Sun Chronicle, Providence Journal, more, Jun 4 2012

Massachusetts led the nation when it passed the first state minimum wage law a hundred years ago on June 4, 1912. Today, it is a laggard.

Wright to head area church council

By Janette Boulay
Sun Chronicle, Jan 16 2010

Attleboro - Kathleen Wright will take over the reins of the Attleboro Area Council of Churches later this month. She was unanimously elected executive director earlier this month by the board of directors, filling the position held for the past 10 years by Dorothy Embree, who recently retired.

Northampton city council backs 'living wage'

By Chad Cain
Daily Hampshire Gazette, Nov 20 2009

NORTHAMPTON - A young girl named Tatiana said it best Thursday night: "Everybody deserves a chance."

And as it did 11 years ago, the City Council Thursday threw its support behind a measure that encourages business owners to offer that chance and pay their employees a living wage.

The nonbinding resolution, which passed unanimously, defines a living wage as $11.90 an hour, or enough for an individual to meet basic needs such as housing, transportation, food and health care. The state's minimum wage is $8 an hour for full-time work.

Northampton City Council to vote on "living wage" resolution

By Fred Contrada
masslive.com, Nov 18 2009

NORTHAMPTON - The City Council will take up a resolution calling for local employers to pay their workers a living wage when it meets tonight.

Put forward by the Northampton Living Wage Coalition and sponsored by the majority of councilors, Mayor Mary Clare Higgins and the city's Human Rights Commission, the resolution recognizes a living wage as a human right.

"For people earning less than a living wage, it's crisis time," said Katherine Callaghan, a lawyer with Western Massachusetts legal Services and a member of the coalition's steering committee.

Business owners support living wage

Letter to the Editor
By Laury Hammel
Wayland, MA
Boston Globe, Jul 14 2009

IN HIS critique of raising the minimum wage, Jeff Jacoby (Op-ed, July 8) cites economists who have predicted that jobs would be lost as a result of such an increase. He’s certainly not talking to owners of small or mid-sized businesses. We hire workers because there is work to be done, and we certainly do not lay someone off because we are “forced’’ to pay $7.25 an hour.

Data back up push for increase

Letter to the Editor
By Holly Sklar
Boston, MA
Boston Globe, Jul 14 2009

Jeff Jacoby (“Minimum-wage folly,’’ Op-ed, July 8) correctly quoted me as saying that minimum wage increases do not increase unemployment, but he failed to mention the empirical research I’ve summarized on the Let Justice Roll website to back that up.