Washington has the highest minimum wage in America, at $9.19 an hour, but that’s not enough – now, a Seattle campaign is pushing to make it $15. An U.S. Chamber of Commerce study says that a higher minimum wage would lead to low-wage job losses, as business owners would likely cut low-wage jobs altogether in […]
Chris Benner was invited to participate in a forum to spark a community conversation about the economic ramfications of increasing the minimum wage. This forum, sponsored by the Progressive Women of Napa Valley, is necessary in an area like Napa Valley where more than 24 percent of the population live below 200 percent of the […]
In this coauthored article, Chris Benner talks about the affordable housing crisis that has the Bay Area in its grips now. U.S. Bureau data shows that the Bay Area is providing enough affordable housing for its wealthiest residents, but what about the workers who fill the low-wage but necessary service industries? Benner argues that changes […]
According to Chris Benner, professor of community and regional development and a supporter of the campaign, raising the minimum wage wouldn’t have a significant impact on the consumer.
“The estimates for $15 of minimum wage are that it would be a 10 percent increase in restaurant prices and a four percent increase in retail,” Benner said.
Read […]
The signs of the gap—really, a chasm—between the poor and the super-rich are hard to miss in Silicon Valley. On a bustling morning in downtown Palo Alto, the center of today’s technology boom, apparently homeless people and their meager belongings occupy almost every available public bench. Twenty minutes away in San Jose, the largest city […]
