As the nation’s economy slowly recovers and income inequality emerges as a crucial issue in the presidential campaign, lawmakers are facing growing pressure to raise the minimum wage, which was last increased at the federal level to $7.25 an hour in July 2009.
Author: WHES
Federal funds to train the jobless are drying up
With the economy slowly reviving, an executive from Atlas Van Lines recently visited Louisville, Ky., with good news: the company wanted to hire more than 100 truck drivers ahead of the summer moving season.
Welfare limits left poor adrift as recession hit
PHOENIX — Perhaps no law in the past generation has drawn more praise than the drive to “end welfare as we know it,” which joined the late-’90s economic boom to send caseloads plunging, employment rates rising and officials of both parties hailing the virtues of tough love.
Aid groups push Obama administration to shift the way US helps feed starving people abroad
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South Sudan: ‘We are depending on the leaves of the trees’
Akec Tut is among 110,000 civilians who fled Abyei when the contested region on the border between Sudan and South Sudan was occupied by Khartoum’s troops in May 2011.
Maid’s cries cast light on child labor in India
NEW DELHI — The girl’s screams were brittle and desperate. Neighbors in the suburban housing complex looked up and saw a child crying for help from an upstairs balcony. She was 13 and worked as a maid for a couple who had gone on vacation to Thailand. They had left her locked inside their apartment.
Myanmar poll: Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD sweeps by-elections
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Pakistan schoolboy’s self-immolation over school uniform raises alarm over poverty
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — As the school term ended across Pakistan last week, proud families flocked to their children’s grade-promotion ceremonies much as they do in the United States. For a 13-year-old named Kamran Khan, the occasion promised special honors: He ranked first in his class.
In Haiti, global failures on a cholera epidemic
MIREBALAIS, Haiti — Jean Salgadeau Pelette, handsome when medicated and groomed, often roamed this central Haitian town in a disheveled state, wild-eyed and naked. He was a familiar figure here, the lanky scion of a prominent family who suffered from a mental illness.
US suspends food assistance to North Korea
The United States says it has suspended a food aid package to North Korea in response to Pyongyang’s plans to carry out a missile launch next month. While the North says its plan to hurl the satellite into space is peaceful, the U.S. and other countries say the launch could help it further its ballistic missile technology.
