Minimum Wage Hike

Socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro announced a new 300-percent minimum wage hike for Venezuelans on May 1, a quasi-traditional yearly announcement as part of the country’s Workers’ Day celebration.

Rap star Cardi B interviewed presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and asked about wages in America, prompting Sanders to push his goal of implementing a federal $15 minimum wage.

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) was so excited when the Minneapolis City Council passed a $15-an-hour minimum wage, he broke out into song.

Illinois Democrats are hoping to pass a minimum wage hike up to $15 an hour during the spring legislative session despite the governor’s opposition to increases of any kind.

Fast-food restaurant chain Wendy’s will install self-order kiosks at 1,000 stores across the country by the end of 2017 to trim extra labor costs imposed by minimum wage hikes, NJ Advance Media reported.

Hundreds of unionized janitors held a peaceful rally, and an apparent strike, at Roxbury Park in Beverly Hills on Thursday to support Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed new law to raise the minimum wage to from $10 to $15 by 2023.

Now that the Oregon legislature has hiked the minimum wage, effective this July, colleges and universities in the state have a decision to make: hire fewer student employees, cut the school’s budget, or raise tuition.

On January 18, Orange Country Register columnist John Phillips suggested Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom may be more moderate than people think. But Phillips barely noted that Newsom is pushing massive new gun controls, the legalization of marijuana, and an increase in the minimum wage.

The City of Santa Monica’s City Council voted on Tuesday night to approve a minimum wage ordinance that, if approved when it is presented for a second time in two weeks, would raise minimum wage for most businesses to $15 an hour by the year 2020.

Two members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors who wanted to exempt some employers from a minimum wage hike lost their battle on Tuesday.

Vice President Joe Biden paid a visit to a Bay Area-based medical equipment company to discuss health care on Thursday, wrapping up a visit this week to the West Coast.

Sacramento restaurants solved the problem of increased labor costs inflicted on them from California’s new minimum wage increase by taking a slice of waiters and waitresses tips.

Labor leaders, who insisted for most of the last year that no exemptions should be allowed when instituting a minimum wage hike for the City of Los Angeles, have changed their tune now that the Los Angeles City Council approved the hike to $15 last week, asserting that companies whose employees are unionized should be exempted from the forced wage hike.

On Wednesday, a Los Angeles City Council committee, determined to expedite the process of driving businesses out of state, endorsed a proposal raising the citywide minimum wage from its current $9 an hour to $15 an hour by 2020.

While Fresno County is suffering from high unemployment–11.6 percent in February 2015, and 12.0 percent in January 2015–Fresno workers have joined the Fight for $15, a national campaign to raise wages and set the minimum wage to $15.