Arizona’s minimum wage to rise 15¢ on Jan. 1, By Howard Fischer, October 19, 2014, Arizona Daily Star: “What would you buy with an extra $6 a week? Two gallons of milk? A Big Mac meal? A venti half-caf, sugar-free latte? That’s how much more those at the bottom of the pay scale will be making come Jan. 1 when the minimum wage in Arizona rises 15 cents to $8.05 an hour. Before taxes. Arizona voters mandated in 2006 that the state have its own minimum wage not tied to the federal figure. And that law requires annual automatic adjustments tied to inflation. The federal minimum wage, currently $7.25, goes up only when Congress approves it, something that last happened in 2009…”
Day: October 20, 2014
Chronic Homelessness – Utah
Will Utah end chronic homelessness in 2015?, By Christopher Smart, October 18, 2014, Salt Lake Tribune: “When Joseph Hardy and his three siblings were young, his mother took them from his polygamist father and bolted. They spent the next decade on the run — camping in the summers, crashing with friends when they could, and grabbing an inexpensive rental when the money held out. ‘I feel like I grew up in the back seat of a car,’ Hardy says today. At age 15, he began using methamphetamine to dull his grief and anxiety. Drug use and depression have ravaged his health, and he’s spent about 14 years of his life behind bars. But the last time he was arrested, Hardy was offered a new choice: treatment and his own apartment, with support from a caseworker to help him shape a new life…”
Inequality and Social Mobility
Poor kids who do everything right don’t do better than rich kids who do everything wrong, By Matt O’Brien, October 18, 2014, Washington Post: “America is the land of opportunity, just for some more than others. That’s because, in large part, inequality starts in the crib. Rich parents can afford to spend more time and money on their kids, and that gap has only grown the past few decades. Indeed, economists Greg Duncan and Richard Murnane calculate that, between 1972 and 2006, high-income parents increased their spending on ‘enrichment activities’ for their children by 151 percent in inflation-adjusted terms, compared to 57 percent for low-income parents…”