With the ball in hand and blockers out front, President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose progressive brand of politics pushes into democratic socialism, lurched last week into the idea of raising the federal minimum wage to $15.
A $15 minimum wage would result in 1.4 million jobs lost and disproportionately hurt younger workers and those with less education, a new Congressional Budget Office report says.
A cyber-insurance policy taken out by the State of Vermont in 2019 will save almost $7 million in projected losses from the inadvertent disclosure of many 1099-G forms last month, the Scott administration announced Wednesday.
The future of many Vermont small businesses is at risk due to a perfect storm of economic, regulatory and pandemic-related threats. Small business leaders are recommending several steps to support jobs and economic recovery.
Democratic lawmakers and advocates for the working poor want to raise New Hampshire’s minimum wage, but the move faces pushback from business groups who say it will cost jobs and hurt the state’s economy.
The Vermont Arts Council is sounding off on how the economic crisis associated with the coronavirus lockdown has devastated the state’s artists and creative workers, stripping them of $195 million in revenue in 2020.
“If we can work together — and put the politics and partisan agendas aside — we can pass a budget that revitalizes our economy and truly transforms the future by setting us on a path that supports all Vermonters in every corner of our state.”
Large corporations have endorsed and lobbied for a $15 federal minimum wage in recent years, but while they can afford such a policy, small businesses would be harmed, studies have shown.
Gov. Phil Scott today announced that Vermont businesses will see another rate decrease in workers’ compensation insurance in 2021. This is the fifth straight year workers’ compensation rates have decreased.
President Joe Biden supports incrementally raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, more than double the current rate of $7.25 an hour. Late last week, he signed an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay at least $15 per hour wages and provide emergency paid leave to employees.
“The pandemic has hit the nation’s most vulnerable communities hard,” Parrott and Zandi wrote in the report released Monday. “Not only have they been more likely to get sick, but they have been more likely to lose their income and savings, and now they are more likely to be evicted.”
Elected officials have largely fallen short of protecting small businesses nationwide throughout the pandemic, even as they have continued to impose devastating restrictions.