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Weekly Address: President Obama – Give America a Raise

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The President’s Weekly Address post is also the Weekend Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comment threads.

 

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, President Obama says this is a year of action, and he will do everything he can to restore opportunity for all. The President already lifted the wages for federal contract workers, and he calls on the American people to tell Congress to finish the job by boosting the federal minimum wage for all workers to $10.10 and give America a raise.

Transcript: Time to Lift the Minimum Wage and Give America a Raise

Hi, everybody.

Restoring the idea of opportunity for all requires a year of action from all of us.  Wherever I can act on my own, I will – and whenever I can ask more Americans to help, I’ll do that too.

In my State of the Union Address, for example, I asked more business leaders to take action to raise their employees’ wages.  Because even though our economy is growing, and our businesses have created about eight and a half million new jobs over the past four years, average wages have barely budged.

So it’s good news that, earlier this week, one of America’s largest retailers, The Gap, decided to raise wages for its employees beginning this year.  Their decision will benefit about 65,000 workers in the U.S.  That means more families will be able to raise their kids, finish their studies, or keep up on their bills with a little less financial stress and strain.

Gap’s CEO explained their decision simply – he said, “[It’s] right for our brands, good for our people, and beneficial to our customers.”  And he’s right – raising Americans’ wages isn’t just a good deed; it’s good business and good for our economy.  It helps reduce turnover, it boosts productivity, and it gives folks some more money to spend at local businesses.

And as a chief executive myself, that’s why I took action last week to lift more workers’ wages by requiring federal contractors to pay their employees a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hour.

In the year since I first asked Congress to raise the minimum wage, six states have passed laws to raise theirs, and more states are working on it as we speak.  But only Congress can finish the job and lift Americans’ wages across the country.

Right now, there’s a bill before Congress that would boost America’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.  That’s easy to remember – “ten-ten.”  That bill would lift wages for more than 16 million Americans without requiring a single dollar in new taxes or spending.  But even though a majority of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans across the country support raising the minimum wage, Republicans in Congress don’t want to give it a vote.

Hardworking Americans deserve better than “no.”  Let’s tell Congress to say “yes.”  Pass that bill.  Give America a raise.  Because here in America, no one who works hard should have to live in poverty – and everyone who works hard should have a chance to get ahead.

Thanks, and have a great weekend.

Bolding added.

~


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 9 Comments

9 comments

  1. JanF

    Remarks by the President before Meeting with Democratic Governors

    THE PRESIDENT:  Well, it’s wonderful to have America’s governors in town.  Michelle and I look forward to hosting with their spouses our annual Governors’ Reception here and dinner.  And it’s always a great opportunity to exchange ideas and hear what’s happening at the local level.

    [..]

    … increasingly, businesses recognize that raising wages for their employees is a smart business issue because they end up having lower turnover rates, higher productivity, higher morale, folks stay longer and are more focused on the job rather than having to worry about whether or not they can pay their bills at the end of the month.

    And this is not just good policy; it also happens to be good politics, because the truth of the matter is the overwhelming majority of Americans think that raising the minimum wage is a good idea.  That is true for independents; that is true for Democrats; and it’s true for Republicans.  So, in fact, where we’ve seen some of these issues going to referendum — for example, in New Jersey, even though the Republican governor opposed it, it passed by 60 percent.

  2. JanF

    A $10.10 Minimum Wage Would Make A DVD At Walmart Cost One Cent More

    Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would increase the price of a $16 product at Walmart, such as the typical DVD, by just a cent if all of the extra costs were passed on to consumers, according to an analysis by an economist for Bloomberg News.

    Ken Jacobs, chair of the Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley, estimates that a minimum wage at that level would add $200 million to Walmart’s yearly labor costs, which comes to just 0.8 percent of what it currently spends. That also represents just 0.06 percent of the company’s billions in yearly sales, Jacobs told ThinkProgress, so if the company decided to pass the entire cost increase on to its customers, it would mean an extra penny for a $16 product.[…]

    Realizing that the benefits are likely to outweigh the cost, one mega retailer recently took voluntary action. Gap announced that it would raise its hourly minimum wage to $10 by June of 2015. GAP Chairman and CEO Glenn Murphy said of the move, “Our decision to invest in frontline employees will directly support our business, and is one that we expect to deliver a return many times over.” Other companies such as Costco, In-N-Out Burger, and Boloco already pay their entry level workers more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25.

    Walmart posted disappointing earnings for the last quarter, mainly because their customer base simply can’t afford to buy things. An increase to the minimum wage would pump $51 billion into the economy over the phase-in period, most of that being immediately spent. That is not just good for workers but good for business.  

  3. JanF

    The Hidden Demographic Shifts That Are Sinking The Republican Party

    Most people have gotten the sense that rising diversity is making life hard for the Republican Party; ditto for the rise of the notably progressive Millennial generation. But there’s a lot more to American demographics than that – and it turns out that some of the lesser-discussed demographic patterns are likely to do quite a bit of damage to Republicans’ electoral fortunes as well.

    There is more to it, and good news for states like Wisconsin, which is 90% white and which will be unlikely to benefit from the shift in racial demographics.  We will not be able to make the congressmen here have to care about losing the votes of constituents who aren’t white because that voting bloc will not grow much.

    But the Millennials are more college educated and more open to diversity, unlike their rural conservative parents and grandparents.

    …the continued rise in the proportion of college graduates is a powerful factor moving us toward a more open and tolerant society. It also should reduce Democratic deficits among white voters since white college graduates are considerably less hostile to Democrats than white noncollege voters.

    Also, as us early boomers start becoming THE senior voting bloc, we will supplant the older conservative voters. From a recent Gallup survey:

    “Baby boomers constitute 32% of the U.S. adult population and, by Gallup’s estimate, 36% of the electorate in 2012, eclipsing all other generational groups. Baby boomers have dominated U.S. politics on the basis of their sheer numbers since the late 1970s, when most of the group had reached voting age….If the party preferences of each generational group were to hold steady in the coming years as the Democratic-leaning baby boomers gradually replace the more Republican Silent and Greatest generations, the country as a whole would likely become more Democratic.“

    The conclusion:

    Thus, over time, high-turnout seniors, currently the most conservative part of the electorate by age, will be liberalized as Baby Boomers age. Moreover, the most liberal part of the generation – those born up through 1955 and termed “early Boomers” – is frontloaded, so the political impact on the senior population could be fairly rapid.

    So, the changing location, education levels, and age of the electorate suggest why the Republicans’ long-term disadvantages aren’t so bad as most people think. They’re worse.

    🙂 🙂 🙂

  4. JanF

    UAW’s Volkswagen Union Appeal Cites Interference From Sen. Corker

    The appeal argues that Corker, Tennessee Gov. William Haslam and State House Speaker Beth Harwell, among others, “conducted what appears to have been a coordinated and widely publicized coercive campaign. They worked, in concert with their staffs and others, to deprive” Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. “workers of their federally-protected right, through the Election, to support and select the UAW as their exclusive representation under Section 9(a) of the National Labor Relations Act (the “Act”), free of coercion, intimidation, threats and interference.”

    The VW union in Germany had weighed in earlier in the week, suggesting that they would be resistant to having more facilities built in the south:

    (Reuters) – Volkswagen’s top labor representative threatened on Wednesday to try to block further investments by the German carmaker in the southern United States if its workers there are not unionized.

    “I can imagine fairly well that another VW factory in the United States, provided that one more should still be set up there, does not necessarily have to be assigned to the south again,” said Bernd Osterloh, head of VW’s works council.

    “If co-determination isn’t guaranteed in the first place, we as workers will hardly be able to vote in favor” of potentially building another plant in the U.S. south, Osterloh, who is also on VW’s supervisory board, said.

    “The conservatives stirred up massive, anti-union sentiments,” Osterloh said. “It’s possible that the conclusion will be drawn that this interference amounted to unfair labor praxis.”

  5. princesspat

    Inslee considers raising minimum wage for state workers

    Gov. Jay Inslee said Friday his administration is considering raising the minimum wage for state workers and contractors, a decision he believes he could – but has not yet decided to – implement through executive order.

    ~snip~

    A bill pending in Olympia would raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour over three years, although there isn’t much evidence yet the legislation will move this session. Democrats in Congress also are pushing to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, but those efforts have stalled in the face of Republican opposition.

    ~snip~

    Inslee said it would take his office several months to conduct an evaluation. He said he would take no action before the current legislative session ends March 13.

    The number of potentially affected workers and contractors are unknown. Half of state employees, excluding those working in higher education, make more than $49,000 a year in base salaries. A full-time worker earning the current minimum wage makes $19,385 a year.

    Thanks to the R’s progress will be slow for those who need it most.

  6. JanF

    Ole Miss Frat Suspended, Noose Suspects Kicked Out

    A fraternity chapter at the University of Mississippi was indefinitely suspended Friday by its national organization and three of its freshman members were kicked out because of their suspected involvement in hanging a noose on a statue of James Meredith, the first black student to enroll in the then all-white college. […]

    Police on Sunday found a noose tied around the neck of the statue, along with an old Georgia flag with a Confederate battle emblem in its design, which has since been updated to exclude the emblem. […]

    [District Attorney Ben] Creekmore said investigators and prosecutors have looked into several misdemeanors, but he said criminal charges were unlikely by his office because the statue was not physically damaged, and the suspects did not appear to be trespassing.

    It seems to me that we have a warped view of “free speech” in our country. Spending money to elect candidates who will give you tax breaks and roll back regulation: free speech. Putting a noose around a black man’s statue with a symbol of the civil war, the war fought to preserve black slavery: free speech.  

  7. JanF

    The Kansas state senate put the kibosh on a house bill that would allow Kansans to discriminate against gays. But in Arizona, they had no qualms about passing the same type of law and sending it to Gov. Brewer (R) to sign.

    Not everyone is on board with this new plan to destroy tourism in Arizona (refusing to approve the MLK holiday lost them a ton of revenue and then SB 1070 cost them even more). Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) tweeted that he hopes Brewer will veto the bill.

    I am sure that the folks who wanted to continue to enslave blacks are kicking themselves for missing this easy “fix” to the problem. They could have claimed that the bible implicitly condoned slavery in its passages like this:

    When a slave owner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, there is no punishment; for the slave is the owner’s property. (Exod. 21:20-21)

    Or that the many many biblical injunctions against race mixing should have invalidated Loving v Virginia.

    This is why all eyes will be on the Hobby Lobby case pending in the Supreme Court where “religious freedom” is being used by corporations to deny health care to women because the owner does not believe in birth control. If the Supreme Court allows the Religious Freedom Restoration Act* to apply to corporations … and allows it to apply to anything that bothers someone’s religious fee fees (“No one who shaves may enter this establishment” “Multiple fabrics: no service”).

    *p.s. This is yet another reason to wonder what the heck people find so wonderful about Bill Clinton. To sign a law protecting the majority religion from perceived discrimination is nonsensical. He did a lot of table-setting for some of the worst excesses of the right-wing: anti-gay, anti-regulation, anti-worker.

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