February 9, 2021
With a proposed $15-an-hour federal minimum wage continuing to be a a contentious piece of US president Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic-relief proposal, Goldman Sachs’ analysts have added their thoughts to the debate: the federal wage floor could be raised.
But the investment bank’s analysts, writing in a Feb. 8 economics research note, say that a compromise of a minimum wage of $10 to $11 an hour, phased in no faster than an additional $1 per year, is “more politically realistic.”
The analysts estimate that about 30% of US workers would benefit, in some cases sharply, from a $15 minimum most of them adults with family incomes below $50,000. In Mississippi, which has no state minimum wage, 40% of the workforce would benefit either directly or through spillover wage effects. (To date, 29 states and Washington DC, which together are home to half the US population, have minimums that are above the federal level of $7.25 per hour.)
February 2, 2021
Dolly Parton’s hit song “9 to 5” is a rousing critique of the American workplace. Released in 1980 as the theme song for the film
9 to 5, co-starring Parton, the lyrics tell the story of an ambitious, hard-working woman with a job that barely pays the bills and a boss who takes her ideas without giving her credit. It’s a song about keeping your spirits up while railing at a system that’s rigged against you. “It’s a rich man’s game / No matter what they call it,” Parton concludes, “And you spend your life / Putting money in his wallet.”
February 1, 2021
As the first US president since the Civil Rights era to make racial justice a prime concern, Joe Biden has identified racial equity as a top priority of his White House agenda.
Rather than put the quest into a silo, he has instead laid out plans to evaluate every federal policy and project through a racial equity lens. He has connected the equity mission to efforts to raise the minimum wage, boost retirement security for people of color, introduce student loan forgiveness, and implement federal procurement rules that would mandate more spending on minority-owned businesses. By executive order, he directed the Justice Department to stop using private prisons, and directed the Department of Housing and Urban Development to “redress racially discriminatory federal housing policies.”
If you’re asking your people to push themselves in the middle of political strife and a raging pandemic, make sure they have the tools to follow through.