Latest on the minimum wage campaign

I just posted an update on the minimum wage referendum at The N.J. Poverty and Economic Reporting Project blog:

An NJ.com story on today’s official kick-off of Raise the Wage’s official campaign to pass a state referendum that would increase the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $8.25 and index it for inflation shows the shortcomings of this kind of approach. While Raise the Wage — a coalition of unions and other organizations — intends to focus on grassroots organizing, its kick-off press conference featured the biggest names in New Jersey Democratic politics, which meant that the coverage was going to focus on, well, politics.
Here is the lede:

Two Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate, the party’s nominee for governor and top union leaders this morning kicked off a campaign to raise state’s minimum wage.

What follows, interspersed with some quotations about the need for a higher wage, is essentially more of the same — which unfortunately implies that the campaign is less about the wage-hike than about Democratic politics.

Read the rest here.

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Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

One thought on “Latest on the minimum wage campaign”

  1. Minimum wage??!!!! Minimum wage??!!?? Minimum wage you say, are there not poor houses, are there not debtors' prisons, are there not gutters available for these arrogant workers who expect a minimum wage? How dare these lazy slugs who expect handouts and giveaways. This is why we need slavery to teach these greedy malcontents a good lesson and to be thankful for a job. The US Chamber of Commerce and the NJ Chamber Pot of Commerce have collective sh*t fits any time they hear those 2 words, minimum wage. We need a strong union movement in this country to level the playing field and demand a damn living wage for an honest days work.

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