$2.13 an Hour [IS]
May 24, 2015Waiters, like all tipped workers, receive only $2.13 an hour minimum wage in 18 US States, including in my home state of Virginia. Including their tips, employers are legally required to pay them the (paltry) federal minimum of $7.25, but employers often fail to do this. The $2.13 rate was set twenty-four years ago in 1991, which was a small increase from $2.01 an hour in 1981. The federal minimum wage (which is still way to low and in real value far lower than it was in the 1960’s) has gone up several times in the last quarter century, but servers are still earning the “quaint” rate of $2.13 an hour, a rate that would not even cover their street parking driving into work.
Such a low rate makes tipped workers’ poverty in Virginia and other stingy states twice the rate of those in states where they are paid a full minimum wage plus tips. And guess what, the restaurant business is doing just fine in California, Nevada and the other full minimum-wage states.
Furthermore, tipped workers have such a variable income — as well as variable scheduling (from the same employer that decides whether to actually pay them $7.25 or to illegally pay them sub-minimum wage) — that they often do not know whether they can pay their rent one month to the next.
It’s time to rectify this injustice now.
Guest: David Cooper, Economic Analyst at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC (and a former tipped worker)
Read his published study here.
Why is Liberalism so Weak in the Heartland? [IS]
May 21, 2015I am joined by two guests this hour as I discuss Liberalism in the Heartland, live from North Dakota.
My first guest is Robert Wood, Associate Professor for Political Science at the University of North Dakota. I ask him whether North Dakotans are hypocrites for taking so much Federal money while criticizing the Government.
My second guest is Jamie Selzler, a former College Republican Chair who became Executive Director of North Dakota Democrats.
The Science of Medical Marijuana [IS]
May 20, 2015I am joined by Author Hampton Sides to discuss his piece “Weed: The New Science of Marijuana,” which is the June Cover Story for National Geographic.
Hillary's Emails [ISLM]
May 19, 2015I join Leslie Marshall to discuss Hillary Clinton’s appearance in Iowa where she reiterated that she wants the State Department to release her work emails from her time as Secretary of State as soon as possible.
