MORNING MESSAGE
There
are more innings to play and more runs that must be scored, but it’s worth
cheering the advance made by Walmart workers this week when it announced that it
would give its workers an increase in its base wage to $9 an hour starting in
April and $10 an hour starting next February. That will mean raises for about
500,000 full- and part-time workers, according to the company. Credit goes to
the campaigns launched by a number of grassroots organizations that for years
have shone a light on the anti-worker policies that are endemic in big-box
retailing but where Walmart, the largest bricks-and-mortar chain, was a
pacesetter.
Walmart Goes To $10 An Hour
Walmart
raising its wages. NYT: “…all of its United States workers would earn at
least $9 an hour by April and at least $10 by next February. Some labor
advocates, however, who are demanding $15 an hour for service workers, called
the plan inadequate.”
The
Atlantic’s Joe Pinsker explains why Walmart budged: “First, the company is
giving in to mounting criticisms about its pay practices. ‘Walmart’s move shows
the success of continued pressure by wage campaign groups that have been
pressuring the company for many years,’ says Nicholas Bloom, a professor of
economics at Stanford University … The second reason [is the] recovery in the
past few years [means] companies will have to start paying their employees more
in order to get them to stick around. From this perspective, Walmart’s decision
is a selfish one…”
“A
Walmart worker making $9 an hour would have to work 2.8 million hours to match
the CEO’s pay” reports Fortune.
Unions
flexing more muscle. Bloomberg: “Oil workers have walked off the job … Dock
workers have snarled West Coast ports. Personnel staffing oil terminals at the
Port of Long Beach, California, are threatening to strike. In Detroit, union
leaders … will push for the first raise veteran autoworkers have received in a
decade. Union leaders are taking advantage of a tightening labor market and
favorable political environment.”
Youth Need Student Debt Forgiveness
“Wage
Gains Reach Millennials” finds Bloomberg: “The share of 25 to 34 year-olds
employed or looking for work was 81.4 percent last month, up from a 32-year low
of 80.5 percent in October 2013 … the four-quarter moving average of median
weekly earnings for 16 to 24-year-olds was 4.8 percent higher in the final three
months of 2014 than a year earlier, the strongest advance of any age group.”
But
millennials still need student debt forgiveness, argues Bloomberg’s Noah
Smith: “…to smooth the transition from youth to middle age, young people
need to borrow … [But if] the labor market tanks, and interest rates or
inflation soars, people who borrowed a lot of money could be stuck with an
unbearable debt burden … The government now can borrow at very low interest
rates … So the government could write down some of the millennials’ debt [and]
replace those obligations with its own, cheaper debt.”
Breakfast Sides
Sen.
Rand Paul may complicate upcoming debt limit increase. The Hill: “[He] is
mulling attaching his Audit the Fed legislation to a vote to raise the debt
ceiling … The move is a clear signal of how serious Paul is about getting a vote
on the legislation that has garnered political blowback from top Fed officials …
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) … have come out
against the bill.”
“German-led
bloc” willing to let Greece leave euro, reports Bloomberg.
Progressive
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