We need to do a better job of supporting parents, whether they’re working, in school, or taking care of children full-time. At the federal minimum wage, paying for child care for one child would take the first 26 hours of wages in a 40 hour week (if it’s an infant, the first 32 hours of wages). All 50 states have some amount of federally-funded assistance to help parents afford child care, but in many states these programs have long wait lists, or have extremely limited eligibility. In Iowa, parents lose all assistance at 145% of the federal poverty line (an income of around $25,000 per year for a parent with…
-
-
One in four “gig economy” workers would take a normal job at a lower pay
In a recent working paper for the Federal Reserve of Boston, Anat Bracha and Mary Burke find that 26% of gig economy workers would accept a lower hourly wage to be able to work hours at a formal job instead of in the informal economy — even if the formal job didn’t come with benefits. While informal and ‘gig’ jobs are sometimes presented as offering greater flexibility and autonomy, Bracha and Burke’s findings strongly suggest that many would gladly ditch gig work in favor of greater predictability. Their working paper also finds that the census districts with the highest rate of informal and gig labor force participation have the lowest…
-
D.C. neighborhoods that voted ‘Yes’ to raise the tipped minimum wage have nearly twice as many restaurant and hospitality workers
D.C. City Council held a hearing yesterday to consider overturning Initiative 77, which would gradually raise the tipped minimum wage for D.C. workers from $3.33 to $12.50, rising to $15 along with the base minimum wage in 2020. Opponents of the Initiative claim to have the backing of not only the District’s restaurant owner and operators, but the city’s restaurant servers and bartenders as well. At yesterday’s hearing, Jill Tyler, Co-Owner of Michelin-starred restaurant Tail Up Goat in Adams Morgan said “by and large, the current system works,” resulting in workers “who can afford to buy a home, who can afford to raise a family,” noting that 40 of her…
