Tag Archives: Economy
Federal Tax Cuts Leave States in a Bind
Posted May 13, 2018
The federal tax overhaul cut taxes for millions of American families and businesses. But the law also had an unintended effect: raising the state-tax bite in nearly every state that has an income tax.
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Business groups have criticized the governor’s proposal, which they argue would make Minnesota less competitive. Some progressive groups say the state should go further, using the extra revenue generated by the federal law to fund a paid family-leave program or childhood savings accounts. “This is exactly the kind of thing you could use to start the core investment of a program like that,” said Chris Conry, strategic campaigns director for TakeAction Minnesota, a liberal advocacy group. “You could give every kid born in Minnesota $500 at birth.”
Minnesota Governor Rejects GOP-Backed Wage Suppression
Posted June 2, 2017
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton (D) this week vetoed a bill written to deny workers paid sick-time and quash a local campaign to lift the minimum wage to $15 per hour.
The state’s base wage is $9.50 per hour, or $19,760 annually, Dayton noted in his veto message. It’s an amount that places a family of four below the poverty line.
“People need to be making a livable wage, which is $15 per hour,” Kyanna Roland, an activist with TakeAction Minnesota, which supports the $15 minimum wage, told Rewire.
The GOP legislation, SF 3, is an example of a preemption bill, an increasingly popular big-business strategy to suppress local labor laws. In 2016, 36 states introduced bills to preempt city ordinances, up from 29 states just a year earlier.
Minnesota Republicans advanced the preemption legislation in response to an anticipated $15 minimum wage hike in Minneapolis and paid sick-time measures passed in that city and St. Paul.
Without paid sick leave, employees “didn’t got to the doctor, they went to work sick,” Roland told Rewire. “That was a huge issue, especially in the food industry, where people would go to work sick.”
In recent years, roughly 40 U.S. cities have increased their minimum wage, and more than 30 have guaranteed paid sick days, according to the National Employment Law Project (NELP).… Continue reading »
