MPR News StaffCollege athletic programs are facing a number of efforts to change the way they function, including a “pay to play” push. Read more →
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Economy
Molly Bloom
The Blue Plate Restaurant Company drew fire for reducing its employees’ tips to make up for a hike in the minimum wage, but it’s now walking back on that decision.
Tim Nelson reports:
Owner David Burley says Blue Plate has dropped the controversial charge, and will also raise the pay for non-tipped staff to $9.69 an hour starting Sept. 1. That’s a premium above the state’s current $8 an hour minimum wage, which went into effect Aug. 1. Today’s Question: Should waiters have to depend on tips? What is the fairest way to compensate waitstaff? Read more →
Michael Olson
Deepak Bhargava of the Center for Community Change says the richest country in the world has built an economy that produces inadequate incomes for more than a third of all Americans. He has a 10 year plan to reduce poverty by 80 percent. Bhargava was invited to the Aspen Ideas Festival to address the question, Read more →
Update: Supreme Court rules against public unions on “fair share” fees. The future of US public-sector labor is in question. The US Supreme Court is poised to rule on Harris vs. Quinn, and could overturn the requirement that public-sector workers must pay a “fair share” of union dues even if they are not members. “Fair Read more →
The U.S. will add 1.2 million new computer-science-related jobs by 2022, the The Department of Labor estimates. Yet, “we’re graduating proportionately fewer computer science majors than we did in the 1980s, and the number of students signing up for Advanced Placement computer science has flatlined,” writes Tasneem Raja in Mother Jones. “There’s a whole host Read more →
TLC’s reality show ,”Extreme Cheapskates,” showcases people who go to, well, extremes to save money. There’s the woman who refuses to spend money doing laundry, so she uses a free sample of detergent and her time in the shower to give her clothes a cleaning of sorts. And then, there’s the couple who, as self-described Read more →
“Charles Fishman thinks Minnesota should sell its water. No, not the way that you might be thinking, in a pipeline from Lake Superior to someplace in the desert like Las Vegas. But as an asset, to water-intensive industries like microchip makers, and on one big condition – that they give the water back in the Read more →
“President Barack Obama is seeking changes in overtime rules that will make millions of workers eligible for time-and-a-half pay for their extra work,” reports the Associated Press. The rules would be aimed at salaried workers who make more than $455 a week and those who are ineligible for overtime because they are designated as management Read more →
Natural gas costs are up this winter by roughly 15% according to Xcel Energy. Are you feeling the pinch of energy costs? Where are you cutting back to cover other winter-related costs? “There’s all this give and take going on at the micro level,” according to Toby Madden, an economist for the Federal Reserve Bank Read more →
ED @peggyflanagan on far right with MN mayors supporting #RaiseTheWage to $9.50 by 2015! http://t.co/KNP9dqoXLo pic.twitter.com/XogHSzPd30 — CDF MN (@cdfmn) February 7, 2014 “Raising the wage is a top priority for Democrats going into the 2014 Legislative session. Last year the Minnesota House passed a bill to raise the wage to $9.50. The Senate passed Read more →