This summer’s 9.2 percent youth unemployment rate is deceptively low--and disguises a disturbing trend. Nearly 11 million teenagers aged 16-19 have dropped out of the labor force entirely, which means they don't have a job and aren't looking for one. This represents a nearly 20-percentage point decline from two decades ago, when more than half of all teens were in the labor force. Some of the reasons […]

Should Florida join California in its embrace of a $15 minimum wage? Orlando attorney John Morgan wants to put the question to Florida voters on the 2020 ballot, and he's made a $1 million funding commitment to the make it happen. (Recent campaign finance filings show that half this money has already been donated.) Before voters embrace the "Fight for $15" — indeed, before they even sign […]

When is a mandated pay raise not a real raise? Employees in 18 states and localities (including ten in California) are about to find out as local minimum wages increased on July 1st. The purpose of this policy is to raise wages for less-advantaged employees at the bottom of the pay scale. But new research suggests an opposite effect; a higher minimum wage has done little […]

Are labor unions trying to turn San Antonio into San Francisco? A coalition calling itself Working Texans for Paid Sick Time has collected signatures for a ballot measure that would require all San Antonio businesses to offer paid sick leave — a workplace mandate that first took root in California’s famously liberal “City by the Bay.” The coalition’s folksy name belies big-dollar backers like the Texas Organizing Project, which […]

The District of Columbia is one of the most liberal places in the country. But its elected officials—all Democrats or left-of-center independents—have lined up against a ballot measure that would raise the base wage for workers who rely on tips by 200%. Mayor Muriel Bowser, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson and most members of the council are opposed to the measure, known as Initiative 77. […]

Detroit’s burgeoning restaurant scene has been the subject of national attention. But a proposed ballot measure to raise the base for restaurant servers by more than 200 percent threatens to halt to the restaurant industry’s growth in Detroit and beyond. Start with some background: Michigan’s minimum wage was raised to $9.25 in four steps starting in 2015, as part of a bipartisan deal between Republicans and […]