Minimum Wage

I agree with "In '96, It's the Economy One More Time" (Column Left, April 21). Minimum wage rates should be raised to help poverty-level workers, who might also be welfare recipients, in an effort to get them off the welfare wagon. The people who criticize recipients for taking advantage of the welfare system are the very people, mainly small business owners, who refuse to ameliorate this problem by raising the minimum wage. Maybe if enough was paid to minimum-wage workers so that they could earn a relatively decent living, they wouldn't be so eager to get the most that they can get out of the welfare program.

At a news conference where supporters out-numbered reporters 10 to 1, Rep. Ron Paul reiterated his plan to stop federal taxation of tips, a proposal that brought loud cheers in this tourism-dependent state, where nearly 20% of all workers rely on such income. Speaking from a podium in an opulent Four Seasons Hotel ballroom, Paul said that Las Vegas "is a city that could benefit rather quickly from one little proposal: Make sure that the United States government does not tax tips at all. " The result, he said, would be less paperwork for businessmen and service providers, many of whom are "working on the margin," especially if they are reliant on such jobs for full-time employment.

The Feb. 12 Opinion pieces on work and welfare by Guy Molyneux ("Toiling Longer--But for the Same Pay") and Gregg Easterbrook ("Minimum Wage Not Always So Minimum") are valuable helps toward dissipating the fog that vested interests have created to prevent ordinary people from understanding what is really happening in the economy. But two things need further elucidation. First, the fear of inflation, hence the need to keep raising interest rates to prevent it. The business pages keep telling us that the bond market is the segment of the economy that most needs reassurance that low inflation will continue.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down an appeal from Applebee's International Inc., which is battling a lawsuit from more than 5,500 bartenders and servers accusing the restaurant chain of underpaying them. The high court declined to hear Applebee's case, which focuses on a practice in which restaurants pay employees reduced minimum wage by factoring in the extra boost provided by tips. Known as a “tip credit,” the practice is banned in states such as California and Minnesota but permitted in Missouri, where many of the plaintiffs work.

Re " ... It's a major mistake," Opinion, April 11 State Sen. Tom McClintock's article is an example of the misinformation that permeates the minimum-wage debate. It's time to get the facts straight. The vast majority (83%) of workers earning within a dollar of the state's minimum wage are adults, ages 20 to 64. More than half (56%) are adults who work full time. Among California's families with minimum-wage workers, two in five (38%) rely on the minimum wage for all of their family earnings.

THE MOST important thing for any poor person trying to improve his or her condition is, of course, a job. It is the entry-level job that accords impoverished workers -- even those with no skills, no references and no employment record -- the invaluable opportunity to succeed and to prosper. It is literally the first rung up the ladder of success. If that is true, then the most vicious governmental policy would be one that eliminates entry-level jobs, making it harder for the poor to get a foothold in life.

They are the anonymous hotel clerks, courtroom jurors and store patrons who populate countless movies, TV shows and commercials. Hollywood's background actors, better known as extras, are accustomed to keeping a low profile — blending in, doing what they are told, and avoiding the limelight reserved for the stars. But a recent action by local and state officials has thrust the entertainment industry's least recognized performers into the spotlight. Last month, the Los Angeles city attorney's office and California labor commissioner took the unusual step of issuing a cease-and-desist letter to Central Casting in Burbank — the largest company for extras — ordering it to stop charging an upfront fee that they said violated state law. Similar warning letters were sent to 13 other L.A. casting companies.

With new jobs hard to find, some of the unemployed headed to the mountains this winter to look for a job, even if the work only lasts as long as the snow. Lake Tahoe area ski resort officials said they saw a significant surge in the number of applicants, many overqualified, for positions such as lift operators, parking lot attendants, ski instructors and chefs. People with graduate degrees and years of professional experience laid off from their "real jobs" have been willing to move to the snow, live with roommates and work for minimum wage.

  Thousands of San Francisco workers are starting the new year with a raise. On Jan. 1 the city's minimum wage will rise to $10.24 an hour. That's the highest rate in the country and makes San Francisco the first place in the U.S. to mandate double-digit hourly wages for its lowest-paid workers. For Ace Wiseman, 27, a recent graduate of San Francisco State University who cleans tables for minimum wage in a Sunset District pizzeria, the raise from $9.92 an hour will buy a few more groceries.

You could order it Re "Sears, Kmart to shut up to 120 stores," Dec. 28 Your article about the possibility of Sears going out of business brought back childhood memories of the Sears Roebuck catalog. I grew up on a small farm in South Dakota in the 1930s and '40s. Next to the Bible, the catalog was the most important book in our farmhouse. That wish book was what helped supply us with basics (and once in a great while luxuries) because our town of about 200 people had only one small department store.

  Thousands of San Francisco workers are starting the new year with a raise. On Jan. 1 the city's minimum wage will rise to $10.24 an hour. That's the highest rate in the country and makes San Francisco the first place in the U.S. to mandate double-digit hourly wages for its lowest-paid workers. For Ace Wiseman, 27, a recent graduate of San Francisco State University who cleans tables for minimum wage in a Sunset District pizzeria, the raise from $9.92 an hour will buy a few more groceries.

President Obama circumvented Congress and moved Thursday to require that home-care aides be paid minimum wage and overtime, giving the fast-growing workforce long-sought assistance. Home-care workers, who now number close to 2 million people, have been exempted from federal labor law since 1974. And although many states, including California, Illinois and Maryland, have rules guaranteeing home-care workers minimum wage, overtime, or both, 29 states do not offer these protections.

California's labor commissioner has sued real estate brokerage ZipRealty Inc. for nearly $18 million, including back pay, in her department's largest minimum-wage enforcement action. The complaint, filed Monday in Alameda County Superior Court, accused the Emeryville, Calif., firm of failing to pay minimum wages and overtime to hundreds of agents throughout the state. ZipRealty markets homes statewide and nationally through the Internet but relies on employee agents to respond to online queries and shepherd deals to closing.

Getting consensus on immigration issues is hard. But few would dispute that the existing system is broken. Its failure can be seen most clearly on farms: An estimated 70% of all agricultural workers in the U.S. are here illegally. Without undocumented workers, crops would rot in the fields. Skeptics need only consider the plight of growers in Alabama and Georgia, who say that new anti-immigrant state laws have put their harvests at risk. Latino migrant workers have fled those states because they fear being deported, and few documented workers or U.S. citizens have applied for the jobs even though they pay above minimum wage.

Earlier this summer, the L.A. City Council ended the fierce competition for the multimillion-dollar food concessions business at Los Angeles International Airport, awarding contracts to three food service companies that will bring a variety of new local restaurants to the airport. Dozens of companies large and small vied for the contracts, spending thousands of dollars on lobbyists over a three-year period. Celebrity chefs from some of the hottest restaurants in the U.S. competed against one another to impress city officials and win the chance to open concessions at LAX. Here's how this newspaper described it: "The list of proposed restaurants is a microcosm of the local dining scene, from big names such as [Nancy]

Nearly every day for three years, Josue Melquisedec Diaz reported to work by going to a New Orleans street corner where contractors, subcontractors and people fixing up their places went to hire day laborers. It was there, one day in 2008, that a contractor picked him up and took him to Beaumont, Texas, just across the Louisiana line, to work on the cleanup, demolition and reconstruction projects that Beaumont was undertaking in the wake of Hurricane Gustav. Diaz was put to work in a residential neighborhood that had been flooded.

They are the anonymous hotel clerks, courtroom jurors and store patrons who populate countless movies, TV shows and commercials. Hollywood's background actors, better known as extras, are accustomed to keeping a low profile — blending in, doing what they are told, and avoiding the limelight reserved for the stars. But a recent action by local and state officials has thrust the entertainment industry's least recognized performers into the spotlight. Last month, the Los Angeles city attorney's office and California labor commissioner took the unusual step of issuing a cease-and-desist letter to Central Casting in Burbank — the largest company for extras — ordering it to stop charging an upfront fee that they said violated state law. Similar warning letters were sent to 13 other L.A. casting companies.