In 2008, a coalition of community members, faith leaders, workers, and labor leaders passed the nation’s first Construction Careers Policy. This policy approach aimed to increase workplace standards in publicly-funded construction projects and increase access to quality construction careers for communities struggling under the weight of poverty and chronic unemployment. The policy met these goals by coupling a Project Labor Agreement with a targeted hire program.
Six years and six victories later, the success of the Construction Careers Coalition represents a new way forward in public investment and accountability. This report will outline the successful Construction Careers approach, the groundbreaking victories of this partnership, and the benefits to workers, community members, and taxpayers.
A measure now before the New Hampshire legislature seeks to strengthen the minimum wage and to begin to build an economy that works for everyone in the Granite State. More specifically, HB 1403 would raise New Hampshire’s minimum wage in two steps: from $7.25 to $8.25 per hour on January 1, 2015 and to $9.00 per hour on January 1, 2016. The measure would also require automatic annual cost of living adjustments, based on the Consumer Price Index, beginning in 2017.
This paper examines the proposed increase, beginning with a brief review of New Hampshire’s current minimum wage and then exploring how that wage compares to historical minimum wage levels, key standards of need, and other states’ wage floors. It next provides estimates of the number of New Hampshire workers who would be affected by the proposal and discusses some of its broader economic consequences. It concludes that raising New Hampshire’s minimum wage could help working families, local businesses, and the New Hampshire economy as a whole.
Income inequality continues to grow in Wisconsin and the United States, producing an ever-widening chasm between the rich and poor. Over the last 40 years, Wisconsin’s richest residents have experienced dramatic increases in income, while Wisconsinites not among the very highest earners saw their incomes stagnate or decline.
Wisconsin’s growth and prosperity are not being equally shared. The rewards of prosperity have been concentrated on the richest 1%. As a state, this should be of substantial concern, not only because of the slow or non-existent growth in incomes for the remaining 99% percent of families, but also because increasing disparity comes with substantial social costs.
All data in this report comes from The Increasingly Unequal States of America: Income Inequality by State, 1917 to 2011, written by Estelle Sommeiller and Mark Price for the Economic Analysis and Research Network. Published by the Economic Policy Institute, the report explores the evolution of top income shares at the state level and provides the figures that allow this analysis of top incomes in Wisconsin. Income figures are presented in 2011 dollars.
Our research found the dire working conditions of port truck drivers to have flowed from the practice of treating employees as if they were ‘independent contractors,’ an illegal practice called misclassification. At the time of our first report, there were practically no official government investigations to verify our findings despite a host of enforcement agencies being responsible for preventing misclassification.
That has now changed. Our findings match those coming from recent investigations of employment practices common in the industry by the United States Department of Labor, the Internal Revenue Service, the National Labor Relations Board, and various state agencies. More importantly, these investigations signal a new dynamic, one with practical ramifications for the organization of work in the industry as well as for broader discussions of inequality in this country.