Minimum Wage

By Emily Jane Fox From Part-Time To Full-Time: Krystal Maxi-Collins, 29, worked at the Macy's department store off and on for two years, and was frustrated that she wasn't made a full-time employee. Her pay wasn't enough to support her family of four, so she worked a second job. When she asked her manager for ...

Fast food workers in Seattle walked off their jobs late Wednesday and Thursday. That made Seattle the seventh city where fast food workers have gone on strike in recent months. A Taco Bell server in Seattle explains here why she (along with her co-workers) walked off the job Wednesday night -- shutting down a ...

By Stephanie Sanders A lot of people have been asking me why I went on strike. I have a simple answer: Because I'm not a teen anymore. I work at McDonald's, and I hear a lot of people talk about how fast-food jobs are for teenagers. Well, I'm not a teenager. I'm 33 years old. And I work with a lot of ...

Every day, foreign aid workers, federal agents, and public policy scholars go to work in the palatial Ronald Reagan Building on Pennsylvania Ave., the most expensive federal building ever constructed. So did Joel Mejia, a 23-year-old Mexican immigrant (right) -- for $9 an hour and no benefits, in the building's ...

Early Thursday, Alterique Hall should have been inside a Midtown Manhattan McDonald's, making burgers. Instead, he stood outside chanting, "We can't survive on $7.25." A McDonald's server for three years, the 24-year-old Hall is participating in a city-wide strike of fast food workers. The chief demand: To raise ...

As Washington argues over the federal budget and sequestration, another issue has emerged of immediate concern to workers: Is it time to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9 by 2015? President Obama suggested it during his State of the Union speech, when he said it's "wrong" that a full-time ...

It's not a surprise that jobs and the economy featured prominently in President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday. But still, Obama mentioned the word "jobs" 46 times in speech, more than he did for any of his prior presidential addresses, signifying what will be the focus of his second term. ...

The guy who whipped your Bojangles' biscuits? He doesn't have any paid sick days. The woman who served your dynamite shrimp at The Cheesecake Factory? She earns less than $5 an hour before tips. Working conditions in America's restaurants are notoriously lousy, and according to a new survey, diners actually care ...

Federal agents descended on a sprawling 34-bedroom New York mansion in May 2011. They found an Indian immigrant woman there who told them that for 5½ years she had been caring for the children of the manor for 17 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year -- at 85 cents an hour. At night she slept ...

While President Obama's win Tuesday has garnered lots of attention, ballot initiatives approved by voters in six states that boost wages and may result in more jobs in some niche industries -- and threaten jobs in another -- are also noteworthy. Some are praised as breakthrough measures. Others (such as a ...

A new lawsuit accused Walmart Stores Inc. and two staffing agencies of requiring temporary employees to show up early for work, stay late, and work through lunch at the world's largest retailer. The proposed class action, filed Monday in a Chicago federal court, alleged that Walmart and the agencies ...

Employees at Walmart, the world's largest retailer, are striking for the first time in 50 years. It's hard to believe it took so long. Walmart Stores Inc. is a massive corporation, yet many workers receive low wages and are denied benefits. But a couple of big myths about retail workers keep the public from ...

When Kathryn Sobilo first considered becoming a home care aide, she was told the work included light housekeeping, assisting patients in getting dressed, running errands, shopping, and helping to prepare meals. "I thought, well, that would be an easy thing to do," Sobilo (pictured below) told AOL Jobs. What ...

By Lily Kuo Firefighters, police and other public workers in a Pennsylvania city saw their wages slashed to minimum wage rates on Friday, in a move by the cash-strapped city to balance its budget, city officials said. Scranton's public workers would be paid $7.25 an hour "indefinitely," starting with ...

You look across the table and your eyes meet. You blink and then quickly look away. Was that a smile you detected? You hope so, because you were smiling, too. No, you're not on a date. You're at a job interview and it's going well. It's the second time you've met with the prospective employer and you feel like ...

Jonathan Bryan, a senior at the University of Virginia, stopped eating on Feb. 17. Three days later, he got strep throat. The doctors drew blood, and gave him antibiotics, but he wouldn't take a bite. By the 10th day, he "could barely stand," he says, and the doctor said he had to eat "to function." But at ...

It's not easy living on minimum wage in New York state. That's especially true in New York City, long known as one of the most expensive cities in the nation and the world, where eking out a living on $7.25 an hour for many means a meager existence at best. Making matters worse in the Empire State is that ...

New York state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver plans to propose a minimum wage hike on Monday, which would lift the state's wage floor to $8.50 from $7.25 an hour. California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri and New Jersey are also considering minimum wage increases, and ...

By Nicholas Papitis ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- Greek workers and employers launched talks on private-sector wage cuts Wednesday with both sides trying to avoid any reductions in the minimum wage. The negotiations, which were blocked last week by Communist protesters, follow intense pressure from debt-crippled ...

Waiting on restaurant tables can be demanding and messy work. For many food servers, however, the reward lies in the form of tips that customers leave, making an otherwise paltry-paying job a bit more lucrative. Waitstaff might do even better if they didn't have to part with some of those earnings. It's ...