Labor

Submitted by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

In a major setback for organized labor, Kentucky passed right-to-work legislation and repealed the state’s prevailing wage law.

Organized labor suffered its first major legislative setback due to the 2016 elections on Saturday, when Kentucky Republicans gave final approval to right-to-work legislation and repealed the state’s prevailing wage law. Both bills are expected to be signed into law by the governor, and will take effect immediately.

 

Submitted by Brittany Hunter via The Mises Institute,

This week, twenty states began implementing minimum wage increases that were passed during 2016. As the country waits to see how these increased wages this will affect the economy, the U.S. territories have already provided us with a grim example. 

Almost exactly one month after taking the unprecedented step of suspending withdrawals from the Dallas Police and Fire Pension (DPFP), the Dallas city council is looking to "clawback" what it views as ill-gotten interest payments made to pensioners to the tune of roughly $1 billion.

There is a simple reason why the vast majority of American workers, some 82% of them, are not feeling any wage growth: there simply isn't any.

As it began so it will finish.

Putting the exclamation point on a trend that has marked Obama's entire presidency, in the final Obama jobs report, the BLS announced that the total number of people not in the labor force grew once more, rising by 18,000 in December, and a whopping 841,000 in the past three months, to a new all time high of 95.102 million Americans no longer in the workforce.