#$15 Minimum Wage

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

#us politics #republicans #conservatives #twitter #tweet #turning point usa #charlie kirk #sen. bernie sanders #minimum wage #raise the minimum wage #$15 minimum wage #socialism #fact check #big facts #2020

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Pennsylvania’s Democratic-controlled House of Representatives approved a measure by a close vote Tuesday that would raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2026, fulfilling a long-held party campaign plank that has run up against Republican legislative majorities for years.

The bill passed 103-100 with all but one Democrat voting for it and two Republicans joining them. But it has an uncertain future in the Republican-controlled Senate as lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro increasingly focus on budget legislation ahead of the July 1 start of the new fiscal year.

Pennsylvania’s minimum wage is set at the federal minimum of $7.25, and last increased in 2009.

The measure would gradually increase the minimum wage to $15 by changing from $7.25 to $11 in its first year, then to $13 in 2025 and finally to $15 in 2026. The bill ties future increases to inflation, which sponsors say mirrors action taken by 15 other states.

The legislation would also increase the tipped wage to 60% of the minimum wage from the current $2.83 an hour. The movement comes after Democrats won a House majority for the first time in a dozen years, albeit by one seat.

It’s been a yearslong effort for Democrats, who have campaigned on increasing the minimum wage nationally.

Rep. Justin Fleming, a Dauphin County Democrat, said it was one of his priorities as a candidate. He recalled working for a former Democratic governor when the Legislature last increased the minimum wage.

“If you had told me that it would be 14 years before this body would take another stab to raise the minimum wage, I simply wouldn’t have believed it,” he said. “Passing this bill will keep workers who live close to our borders here in the state and patronizing Pennsylvania businesses.”

Republicans emphasized concerns for small businesses and rising costs associated with raising the wage.

“I cannot support a bill that would put a local family restaurant out of business and, along with it, the many employees who make a living at their three locations,” said Rep. Katie Klunk, a York County Republican.

For some Democrats, the effort didn’t extend far enough.

“An African proverb says, ‘When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers,’” said Dauphin County Democratic Rep. Patty Kim. “Even if we raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, the grass still suffers. I support this bill because this is a piece to a larger puzzle that will help working families.”

Shapiro campaigned last year for a $15 minimum wage and, in his first budget address, he asked for the increase. Republican opposition stymied efforts by former Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf through his eight years in office to raise the minimum wage.

Wolf imposed higher wage requirements on companies getting loans, grants or tax breaks from the state government through an executive order in 2021. He did the same to state contractors in 2016.

All told, 30 other states and Washington, D.C., have raised the minimum wage above the federal minimum, including some Republican-controlled states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Every neighbor of Pennsylvania also has raised the minimum wage, although Ohio’s law exempts lower-earning businesses and employees under 16.

June is budget month in Pennsylvania’s Legislature and often a time for deal-making on pet policy priorities between governors and top lawmakers.

Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman, R-Indiana, said last week that his caucus would wait for the House to pass a minimum wage bill to consider it. However, he said, “$15 an hour is not a practical number” for Republicans in that chamber to consider.

In a deal with Wolf in 2019, the Senate agreed to raise Pennsylvania’s minimum wage in four steps to $9.50 in 2022, but the House’s Republican majority blocked it.

#us politics #news #the associated press #2023 #pennsylvania #minimum wage #raise the minimum wage #$15 minimum wage #Gov. Josh Shapiro #Pennsylvania legislature #Justin Fleming #Katie Klunk #Patty Kim #Tom Wolf #National Conference of State Legislatures #Joe Pittman

[eelhound]

"When [Kshama] Sawant was elected on the promise of passing a $15 minimum wage, every other member of the [Seattle] City Council opposed it. Instead of writing a polite letter to her colleagues pleading with them to support it and then giving up when that failed, Sawant and Socialist Alternative created a campaign called 15 Now:

15 Now set up 11 action groups in neighborhoods across the city mobilizing in the streets and at public forums. [They] organized multiple rallies and marches of hundreds of people in Seattle, a National Week of Action in over 21 cities, and a major presence at both the annual Martin Luther King Day march and May Day march. … Critically, through the action groups and democratic conferences, 15 Now offered activists the opportunity to have ownership over the fight for $15.

Essentially, 'Sawant used her position as a city councilmember and the big media spotlight on her to build a powerful grassroots movement from below.' It was this grassroots mass mobilization — and its credible threat of a ballot initiative that would have passed an even more progressive minimum wage law — that led the Seattle City Council to reverse its opposition and pass the $15 minimum wage, the first of its kind in any major U.S. city, which quickly spread to other cities and even states and changed the national debate. The D.C. progressives, therefore, have Kshama Sawant and her mobilizing, fighting approach to thank for the $15 minimum wage being on the national agenda.

The second major accomplishment of Sawant’s tenure is the Amazon Tax — a tax on the wealthiest businesses in Seattle to fund affordable housing and Green New Deal projects. Two years after a grassroots campaign spearheaded by Sawant won the tax, big business succeeded in getting the City Council to repeal it. Instead of conceding defeat:

Sawant convened a series of Tax Amazon Action Conferences … where hundreds of activists discussed, debated, and voted on a strategy and the elements of a new proposal. … As the drive approached the signature threshold to get on the ballot, and with hundreds of activists flooding city council offices with emails, phone calls, and public testimony, and with the Amazon tax demand being echoed in the street protests, the political establishment felt compelled to advance its own Amazon tax.

The result was an Amazon Tax four times as large as the one that was repealed...

There are two interconnected and mutually reinforcing reasons that Sawant has been tremendously effective where D.C. progressives have failed — her fighting approach and her deep connection and accountability to grassroots organizing.

Her fighting approach includes the critical understanding that elected office is not a friendly arena where progressives can privately convince corporate politicians to do the right thing, but a battlefield of raw power where the Democratic establishment is an enemy that must be forced into giving concessions. Sawant is able to maintain this radical, fighting approach without being politically marginalized because she comes out of, remains accountable to, and is in consistent dialogue with grassroots social movements. The decisions made in the fights for the Amazon Tax or the $15 minimum wage were not made by Sawant herself but were voted on at action conferences where anyone from Sawant to a new volunteer had an equal say. In fact, Sawant never simply decided to run for office, but only did so reluctantly when, as a member of Socialist Alternative, the organization democratically decided that she should be the candidate they run.

Among other leftist lawmakers who have been able to effect progressive change despite being in the minority, close ties and accountability to grassroots movements have been key. In discussing how he has been able to pass over a dozen of his own bills and help make Illinois the first state in the country to abolish cash bail, democratic socialist and Illinois State Senator Robert Peters explained:

I try to tie myself to the movement as much as possible because I am the conduit for their organized power and governing position. And they are the conduit for me being able to govern the way I want to. And if those are tied together, it makes it easier to get things done under the dome. … I believe that my office should be a conduit for organizing, for movement spaces. So basically opening it up, whether it’s mutual aid efforts on the South Side, it’s hosting meetings, it’s being part of meetings. And sometimes when I’m not able to get something done, being held accountable. I try to make sure that I’m tied as much as possible. And I will ask. When we passed the bill … I was talking to the coalition about negotiations on this bill. I said 'They’re trying to do this in the bill, and I need to know: how far am I allowed to go?'… I remember saying to my colleague on the floor … 'My people won’t let me go any further. That’s it. I can’t negotiate any further.' We’re not as weak as people think.

- Jordan Bollag, from "The Left Is Losing Because We’re Not Confrontational Enough." Current Affairs, 20 May 2022.

#jordan bollag #quote #quotations #american politics #governing #political organizing #grassroots organizing #democratic socialism #leftism #progressivism #social movements #kshama sawant #robert peters #activism #$15 minimum wage #labor movement #neoliberalism #democratic party #capitalism #realpolitik

[politijohn]

Source

Said the quiet part out loud!

#capitalism #eat the rich #end capitalism #minimum wage #working class #workers rights #news #current events #fight for 15 #the left #politics #us politics #government #twitter post #progressive

[socialjusticeinamerica]

#fight for $15 #raise the minimum wage #trickle down is a Republican scam #war on the poor #war on the middle class #Republicans support the top 1% #never trump #republican assholes #republican hypocrisy #traitor trump #crooked donald

[alphie-in-the-sky]

I got a raise!! I am a range 10 and moved from a step 3 to the step 4, since I have worked for the school for 4 years. I got a raise from $15.88 to $15.88!  The school really appreciates it’s employees!

#school employees #california minimum wage #$15 minimum wage #pay your workers #pay your workers more!!

[beybuniki]

would you spend $15 - $20 on a request like this 🐐

i don't feel comfortable doing proper commissions (with colors, going back and forth), but i want to try doing some paid-for requests, basically :D I was looking for some pieces that i could as examples for how my sketch requests would look like and i realized i never draw singular characters, it's always 2 interacting with each other, drawing one character standing awkwradly is harder for me than two i guess 🐐

#ngl i think my commissions would be p expensive i dont see the ppint in working minimum wage but like $15 for two characters should be a #fair deal i think idk! #teaching salary is 30 / hour approx and i never rlly worked for less than 15 and hour

[somecunttookmyurl]

every time R comes to clean i give her extra money (she asks for £11/h, she gets 11.50-12.50 kind of dependent on my exact change situation but always at least 11.50) and she argues her rate is £11 and tries to give me change and it's like ok minimum wage is 11.44 i literally cannot pay you less than that and at that point you might as well round up to 11.50 but also. i am a white woman hiring a black woman to clean my house. stop asking for slave wages. girl.

#practically every other cleaner is at least 15/h it's why i can afford to hire you in the first place but honey #bestie #look at me #even if i could legally pay you below minimum wage #which as a cash in hand no agency involved situation i totally could there's no paper trail #just like morally i could not do that #it's bad enough i can only pay you *just* above minimum i'm not going under it stop asking me to do that i'm begging

[dispatchesfromtheclasswar]

#class war #class warfare #classism #no one wants to work #minimum wage #living wage #fight for $15

[mcnuggyy]

just a little behind the scenes but I ran the numbers and found I need to be making 420 book sales in order for my comic to be making a profit <3 hehehe funny weed number

#this is w me selling it at 12.50 #I’ve decided to keep it at this price for the first issue but going forward def increasing to 15$.. 😔🫶 #sorry gang #my goal then becomes 350 book sales #this is w me accurately representing my work as me getting paid 30$ for each hour I put in #if I give myself only minimum wage then it’s 175-210 in sales! #ohhhh I believe I believe that one day I can reach this goal amen 🥺🙏 #nuggyy txt #a little behind the scenes for you all I guess bahaha #I hope it’s not in bad taste for me to be talking so openly about this #but oh well #im a freelancer I gotta be honest w my audience 😭😭😭

[gayvampyr]

individual artists/commissioners will spend 80+ hours making a product and be like “i think $50 is a fair price”

#long story short RAISE YOUR PRICES #sell your stuff for what it’s worth! factor in time and effort! #give yourself a $10-15 MINIMUM hourly wage and factor in cost of production #there’s your price #text post

[lautakwah]

i refuse to start smoking for a multitude of reasons but i support my coworkers getting more breaks than me lol

#we r all minimum wage warriors i will look the other way if theyre gone for 15 mins #even tho i might in the moment be prissy bc we r so so understaffed 😭 #ling.txt

[itsadragonaesthetic]

People say I have a slow drawing speed. I got this done in an hour. What kinda bullshit sonic the hedgehog shit are other people on?

By the way this is gonna be an adopt when it's done pls message me if ur interested uwu

#based on my states minimum wage #thats 15$ worth of work babes #thats just a sketch im doing full color and effects #wings of fire #sandwing #leafwing #dragons #my posts #my art #dragon speaks

[gadgetini]

please commission me (paypal)

I don't know how to word this so I don't sound like I'm begging or making a sob story I'm sorry buy I am going to get kicked out of my house, and if I go live with my dad I need proof that I can make money. so sorry for asking this and making it personal just please consider.

#ill make a proper commission post later but idk when or how long itll take #gwaahh just please consider #i can draw you something at the minimum price of 15 dollars thats like barely minumim wage

[lesbiansandgayssupporttheminers]

Last night, the TUC started a campaign for a £15 minimum wage for all workers.

Because that's the wage you now need to survive in Britain.

For a long time in the UK, the benefits system has subsided people on low incomes, meaning companies can get away with paying too little. But what we really need is fair pay.

#uk politics #fight for 15 #tuc #minimum wage #raise the minimum wage

[introspectivememories]

tim “never had to work a day in his life” drake talking to bernard “living on government welfare” dowd:

#tim has no idea about the cost of everyday items #bernard: babe i'm going to the grocery store! you want anything? #tim: yeah can you get me a can of pepsi? here's $15. that should cover it #bernard: just to be clear babe you're giving me $15 for a can of pepsi? #tim confused: yeah! why? you think you'll need more? #bernard: stares into the camera like it's the office #also poor!bernard truther unite!!!! #that man is broke #that man works 3 minimum wage jobs #bernard dowd #tim drake #timber #timbernard #dc