If the price of a burger goes up 5 cents, and the minimum wage that you have received is going up from $7.25 to $15 an hour - and there have been a number of studies that document just how much the price of a burger might go up if you increase the minimum wage. You match the costs, and the benefits far outweigh the costs.
Tom Perez
Our workforce and our entire economy are strongest when we embrace diversity to its fullest, and that means opening doors of opportunity to everyone and recognizing that the American Dream excludes no one.
When we talk about the kind of folks whose lives will be made better by raising the minimum wage, we're not talking about a couple teenagers earning extra spending money to supplement their allowance. We're talking about providers and breadwinners. Working Americans with bills to pay and mouths to feed.
My parents both came to the United States from the Dominican Republic, and they were deeply grateful for the opportunities this country provided. They raised my siblings and me to want to make a difference and give back. They taught us to work hard and aim high, but to also make sure the ladder was down to help others climb up.
Workers are baking the pie of prosperity, but they're not sharing in those dividends. That's unfair.
How do we make sure that rising tides lift all boats and not just the yachts?
Economically Targeted Investing, or ETI, refers to the practice of selecting investments, in part, for their collateral benefits in addition to the investment return for the retirement plan.
President Obama believes that income inequality is one of the most pressing matters facing the nation. If we are going to be a country that provides ladders of opportunity and believes in a thriving middle class, then we have to raise the minimum wage.
For many people, and particularly in communities of color, the basic bargain of America - that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can share in the nation's prosperity - has become a raw deal. That's what President Obama's opportunity agenda is all about - making good on our country's half of the basic bargain.
To fulfill the promise of economic opportunity, we must remain true to the principle that collective bargaining is a cornerstone of a free society and indispensable to a strong middle class.
From the new hate crimes law to the repeal of DOMA and 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' to the emerging popular support for marriage equality, we are making progress at breakneck speed. As someone who has dedicated most of my career to civil rights law, I am deeply moved by this sea change and proud to have done my part.
On July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act. Its enactment, following the longest continuous debate in the history of the U.S. Senate, enshrined into law the basic principle upon which our country was founded - that all people are created equal.
You can't eat cake and lose weight.
I had the luxury of skipping the cabinet meeting to attend my daughter's graduation. So many people don't have the luxury of taking an hour away from the workplace to attend indispensable family commitments. We have to change that dynamic.
To realize President Obama's vision of opportunity for all, it's all about making the right match. The way we do that is through job-driven training - connecting ready-to-work Americans with ready to be-filled jobs. It helps more people secure a foothold in the middle class and helps businesses to profit and grow.
One of the most pervasive and damaging trends we are seeing in the 21st-century workplace is the deliberate misclassification of workers by employers looking to shift responsibility and cut costs.
Joe Arpaio built a wall. His was a wall of distrust, and when you don't have the trust of the community, you don't have anything. He claimed to be a law-and-order sheriff, but he was really lawlessness and disorder.
Dr. King's last campaign was a labor struggle. Many people are aware that King was assassinated in Memphis in the spring of 1968. Less well-known is what drew him there: solidarity with city sanitation workers, who, without the benefit of union representation, were rising up to protest humiliating pay and deplorable working conditions.
The best way to promote and protect opportunity is through collaboration, consensus-building, and pragmatic problem-solving. Throughout nearly 30 years in public service, I have approached tough challenges by making room for as many people as possible around the table in search of common ground.
I've learned that it's important to listen to employees at all levels, to engage them, to empower them. Whether you're a first-line supervisor or the head of an entire agency, you should be asking career staffers, 'What do you think?'
I'm often accused of hiring people with civil rights experience, and I do plead guilty to that.
Budgets are moral documents. They reflect the values of any government and when you're compromising clean air, clean water, and lead, you're making a statement about communities you don't care about.
It's time to update our workplace policies to reflect the realities of the 21st-century labor force and to support modern working families. It's time to continue our nation's long commitment to supporting unemployed workers by extending emergency unemployment compensation.
Of all the tough decisions in life, choosing between the job you need and the family you love should not be one of them.
The most important family value of all is time with your family.
The 3.5 million people in Puerto Rico are American citizens. They deserve fair and equal treatment as Americans.
What we want to do is call attention to the fact that when workers and business work together, when you create a stakeholder model of corporate governance, where you understand that you can do well by your workers, you can do well by your shareholders and you can do well by your customers, that's how we create a virtuous cycle.
I met a person on my rural tour in northwest Wisconsin who said to me, 'I feel politically homeless.' And we need to re-engage that person.
Historians have often censored civil rights activists' commitment to economic issues and misrepresented the labor and civil rights movements as two separate, sometimes adversarial efforts. But civil rights and workers' rights are two sides of the same coin.
There's this notion out there - and it's a categorically false notion - that the only business model in the service industry is the minimum-wage business model. I say phooey to that. You go to a Costco store, and you see people there who've been working there for years and years. They're making $15, $20 an hour, plus health benefits.
In terms of intellectual property, so many of the job creators I know are start-ups. In the IP setting, we can meaningfully improve on the status quo, and in so doing, we can help small businesses, large businesses, and those in between.
During Black History Month, I'm reminded yet again of the ways that the struggle for civil rights is interwoven with the struggle for workers' rights.
On Veterans Day, I can't help think of my uncles who volunteered for the service after fleeing a brutal regime in the Dominican Republic. They hadn't been in America long, but they were already so grateful for its opportunities that they were eager to serve.
Sometimes you have to push the envelope in pursuit of the right thing.
President Obama has made a minimum wage increase a focal point of his economic agenda.
Apprenticeships are a particularly effective way to create career pathways with upward mobility and strong earning potential. Because apprentices receive a paycheck, it's a great option for those with families to support, including many veterans.
We have to bake labor provisions into the core of an agreement. TPP would do that. Under NAFTA, countries had to simply promise to uphold the laws of their own nations.
I've talked to several CEOs - from a recycling company in Indiana, a furniture company in Kentucky, a brewing company in Colorado, and more - who believe paying higher wages is both the right thing to do and part of a successful business model.
Clearly, apprenticeships are a win-win: They provide workers with sturdy rungs on that ladder of opportunity and employers with the skilled workers they need to grow their businesses. And yet in America, they've traditionally been an undervalued and underutilized tool in our nation's workforce development arsenal.
It was a privilege to serve as the assistant attorney general for civil rights, a role that allowed me to enforce the Civil Rights Act and help make its promise a reality.
Every president since Nixon has embraced a policy of 'self-determination without termination' - the idea that Native Americans are best equipped to govern themselves. Trump is breaking with this position.
A secure retirement is one of the pillars of middle class life. For all too many Americans, however, that pillar needs more support.
Under the leadership of President Obama and a whole host of partners, including nonprofits, foundations, and advocates, the Department of Labor has made historic investments in community colleges, apprenticeships, coding boot camps, and summer jobs.
Union members not only earn higher median wages; they are more likely to have paid sick leave, short-term disability, and employer-provided child care. Giving people a voice at work - the ability to organize and negotiate for their fair share of the value they helped create - is absolutely essential to a growing, vibrant middle class.
With patience, persistence, and partnership, we can create economic opportunity for every person willing to work hard for it.
Our economic future and our energy future are one in the same, and it's a future America can't shrink from. We must shape it, just as we've always done. We have to protect our planet from the threat of climate change and ensure that workers have the skills to compete for good middle-class jobs.
I've heard the argument that unemployment benefits somehow act as a disincentive to the long-term unemployed when it comes to looking for work, but the opposite is true. Unemployment Insurance serves as a powerful incentive for people to keep searching for jobs, rather than drop out of the labor force altogether.
Donald Trump is a fraud. Listening to him talk about how he's going to put American first again, he's spent his entire career putting his own profits first.
If you're going to be a big tent party as we are, and you're going to help elect democrats who have generated support in their communities... the will of those voters is the will that we must respect.
Hillary Clinton is about 'we.' Donald Trump is about 'me.'
