- In Arkansas, voters may get chance to raise minimum wage, By Scott Horsley, April 2, 2014, National Public Radio: “President Obama travels to Michigan Wednesday to tout his proposal to boost the minimum wage. Raising the wage to $10.10 an hour is one of the top agenda items for Obama and his fellow Democrats during this mid-term election year. The White House says the move would put more money in the pockets of some 28 million workers. One test of that strategy will be in Arkansas, where proponents are trying to put a minimum wage increase on the ballot in November. Arkansas has some of the lowest wages in the country and it’s also home to one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats…”
- With Obama’s push, momentum on minimum wage moves to states, By Michael D. Shear, April 2, 2014, New York Times: “The more President Obama talks about the need to raise the federal minimum wage, the less likely it appears that Republicans in Congress are inclined to do it. But the stalemate matters less and less. In the last 14 months, since Mr. Obama first called for the wage increase in his 2013 State of the Union address, five states have raised their own minimum wages and 34 states have begun legislative debates on the matter. Activists in an additional eight states are pursuing ballot referendums this year to demand an increase in wages for their lowest-paid workers…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty