I appreciate Andy Stern’s response to my recent post on labor law reform and UBI. I think we agree on almost everything, but disagree in a couple important respects. Let me first trace the large zone of agreement. I think we’re both committed to an egalitarian... More »
President Trump announced one choice for the National Labor Relations Board, William Emanuel. Emmanuel is a partner at Littler Mendelson and has worked with Republicans in Congress and major trade groups from various industries. President Trump has one other p... More »
Thanks to the many readers who have responded to my post (just now) on the University of Washington minimum wage study. The original post is now updated to include a link to the EPI paper that responds to the UW study and makes a series of important methodolo... More »
As FiveThirtyEight reports today, in a story titled Seattle’s Minimum Wage Hike May Have Gone Too Far, a team of researchers at the University of Washington is out with a new economic analysis of the Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance. Here’s the abstr... More »
The New Rule In May 2016, the Department of Labor, under the direction of President Obama, issued a final rule updating the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Department raised the minimum annual salary for employees exempt from overtime... More »
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has just granted the DOL’s motion for expedited briefing and oral argument in its appeal of the nationwide injunction issued against the Overtime Rule, despite opposition from the state attorneys general who filed the s... More »
Since the Presidential election was so close, it’s very tempting to engage in thought experiments about how different actions might have changed the outcome. And for all of Hillary Clinton’s flaws as a candidate, exit polls suggest that the election can be vi... More »
The Supreme Court on Monday issued a narrow decision in Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro rejecting a U.S. Department of Labor interpretation of the scope of the overtime exemption for auto dealership sales employees. But the Court left open the possibility th... More »
Over the past two years, advocacy and media attention around work scheduling has expanded dramatically. In 2014 and 2015, ten states and Democrats in Congress introduced legislation to increase scheduling predictability for workers. In April, Seattle legislat... More »
Whole Foods is advertising job openings in the Boston suburbs starting at $11/hour – a mere $4/hour less than the Fight for Fifteen demand. Is this what conscious capitalism means? More »
April 1st marked the one-year anniversary of the effective date of Seattle’s headline-making minimum wage law. The law mandated a graduated increase to $15/hour by 2018 for employers with more than 500 employees and 2021 for all employers with less. New York... More »
The institution of tipping has recently evoked a firestorm of criticism. Opponents of tipping point out that many servers earn below minimum wage; that servers, particularly women, often tolerate sexual harassment for the sake of earning better tips; and that ... More »