Economy

Breaking news: Seattle will establish $15 per hour minimum wage, highest in the nation

Posted by Stephen Herzenberg on May 1, 2014 2:52 pm
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Seattle will raise its minimum wage to $15 per hour, the highest in the nation, under a deal just announced by labor and business groups and reported on by Think Progress.

All employers will have to meet the $15 minimum wage by the end of the decade, while businesses with more than 500 employees will have a three-year phase-in period.

Pittsburgh: One of America's New Laboratories of Democracy

My colleague Diana Polson brought my attention to Harold Meyerson's new story in The American Prospect highlighting Pittsburgh as a city with exciting young progressive political leadership and labor-community alliances (e.g., Pittsburgh United). Pittsburgh deserves the credit as do councilwoman Natalia Rudiak, Mayor Peduto, and SEIU 32BJ, which received shout outs in the story.

Makers of the U.S. Unite: The UAW Vote at VW One More Time

Posted by Stephen Herzenberg on March 13, 2014 9:31 am
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There are three central challenges facing U.S. manufacturing today: wages are too low, employers invest too little in their workers, and the sector lacks meaningful credentials or job-matching institutions allowing dislocated workers to find new manufacturing jobs that capitalize on their skills.

Understanding the Union Vote at VW in Tennessee

Posted by Stephen Herzenberg on March 12, 2014 9:44 am
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As you probably know, the United Auto Workers (UAW) lost a union election at a Chattanooga Volkswagen plant last month by a vote of 712 to 646 (53% to 47%). My heart goes out to the workers and UAW leaders who put heart and soul into achieving a different result.

I was taken aback by the vote, I have to admit. So it has taken me a couple of weeks to process it.

PA Payrolls Essentially Unchanged in January But Jobless Rate Falls to 6.4%

Posted by Mark Price on March 7, 2014 2:11 pm
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Today was an unusual first Friday of the month as we got both a national release of job numbers for February and a Pennsylvania jobs release for January.

Both reports were a mixed bag:

  • National payrolls grew a bit faster than expectations, but the unemployment rate climbed to 6.7% in February.
  • Pennsylvania payrolls grew by a disappointing 500 jobs in January, but the unemployment rate declined four-tenths of one percentage point to 6.4%.

PA Job Growth Slows Once Again in 2013

Posted by Stephen Herzenberg on March 5, 2014 10:57 am
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By several measures, Pennsylvania’s economic recovery is still limping along. That is the essential finding of a new policy brief from the Keystone Research Center examining Pennsylvania job growth since the recession ended.

Job growth in the state has slowed steadily over each of the past three years with only about a quarter of the number of jobs created in 2013 as in 2010, the first full year of the economic recovery.

Historic Union Vote at Volkswagen in Tennessee

Posted by Stephen Herzenberg on February 14, 2014 11:08 am
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Today is the third and final day of a historic union vote for workers at Volkswagen in Tennessee, in which workers will decide whether they want to be represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union.

Towards a Moral Economy: Is NOW the time?

The Moral March: Photo from ThinkProgress.orgThe Philadelphia Daily News' Will Bunch had an uplifting column this past Sunday on Saturday's "Moral March" in Raleigh, N.C. It was the South's largest protest march since Dr. Martin Luther King and the Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1965.

Punxsutawney Phil and Governor Corbett

I published a commentary this week on Governor Corbett's 2014-15 budget proposal this week in the Allentown Morning Call. Check it out.

Punxsutawney Phil is predicting more chilly weather ahead, but a winter-weary Gov. Tom Corbett must have spring on his mind. His budget address Tuesday painted a bright and rosy picture of Pennsylvania's future even as we remain in the grip of a long economic winter.

Camelot: Where King Arthur...I Mean Queen Dianne...Earns a Cool £2.1 Million

Posted by Stephen Herzenberg on January 31, 2014 4:39 pm
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Pennsylvania Senate hearings on lottery expansion earlier this week focused on increasing state revenue for seniors' programs by expanding lottery games under public management (to include keno). This was a welcome shift from last year's proposed privatization of the lottery with the Camelot Group, a British company, and a temporary reprieve from more recent rumors about privatizing lottery management.

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