Minimum wage hike may be decided by NJ voters, By Angela Delli Santi, September 23, 2012, Cherry Hill Courier Post: “The Democrat who leads the New Jersey Senate plans to introduce a measure Monday that would put a minimum wage increase before voters next year. The resolution will ask voters to increase the wage by $1, to $8.25 per hour, and tie future yearly increases to national economic data, known as indexing, Senate President Steve Sweeney of Gloucester County told The Associated Press. Gov. Chris Christie indicated that he would not sign a bill with for indexed adjustments, Sweeney said. He said that’s why he hasn’t advanced the bill the Assembly passed in May hiking the minimum wage to $8.50 per hour and creating annual adjustments based on the Consumer Price Index. Sweeney said his 2005 minimum wage legislation was approved only after he agreed to remove such a provision…”
Tag: New Jersey
Financial Hardship and the Near Poor – New Jersey
Report: More than one-third of New Jersey households either mired in poverty, or close to it, By Mark Spivey, September 3, 2012, MyCentralJersey.com: “Olivia Maxwell pauses, momentarily puzzled and maybe even a little taken aback by the question of whether she considers herself to be part of New Jersey’s middle class. Then it hits her – of the dozens of questions facing her every day, this one ranks pretty much at the bottom of the barrel in terms of importance. How many meals she’ll be able to squeeze out of a carton of eggs and a handful of packages of Ramen noodles – now that’s a question. The same is true of whether the shot brakes and worn tires on her aging Honda Accord are going to hold up for a little longer; if not, there goes a week’s worth of paid vacation, because her next paycheck won’t arrive in time to cover repairs, forcing her to stay home. Then there’s the question of whether she’s going to be able to afford summer camp for her 12-year-old son Quincy next year; she sure hopes so, because things came up just short this year and the look on his face ate her up inside…”
Prisoner Re-entry Program – Newark, NJ
From prison to a paycheck, By Howard Husock, August 3, 2012, Wall Street Journal: “Hector Morales might not seem, at first, to be an American success story. At age 50, he works the graveyard shift-7 p.m. to 5 a.m.-at the back of a garbage truck, part of a three-man crew that lifts and loads 80,000 pounds of waste each night in New York City. It’s his first job in years. The native of Paterson, N.J., a high-school dropout, still owes more than $9,000 in child-support payments to the state of New Jersey. But compared with Mr. Morales’s situation a year ago, his story is a success. Then, he was completing a five-year sentence at the Northern State Prison in Newark, N.J. The former heroin addict has spent, by his own estimate, 18 years behind bars, mostly on drug-related charges. Today, Newark-based Action Carting, one of the largest commercial disposal firms operating in New York, considers Mr. Morales to be a model employee and a good prospect for promotion if he completes his plan to get a commercial truck driver’s license. Currently, he’s on track to earn more than $60,000 a year, including overtime. Every week, part of his check goes to pay off his child-support debt…”