Rich aren't getting richer, the poor are getting poorer

A new Brookings Institute Study finds the rich not necessarily getting richer, but the poor

have not bounced back like the rich from the Great Recession.

Courtesy of Mint

Oakland's Calif. pushes for a living wage

Courtesy of Google images

The Living Wage Movement gains traction in Oakland, Calif. as the powerful Service Employees International Union Local 1021 joins forces with Lift Up Oakland Coalition. Oakland is the latest site of demonstrations pushing for an increase in the minimum wage and echoes President Obama's call in his recent State of the Union address. Since then, the president has implemented an executive order raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour for workers under new federal contracts.

At the forefront, San Francisco has raised the minimum wage in addition to providing city-wide health insurance coverage. Seattle, New York and  now Chicago are considering similar action.  A newly published book, When Mandates Work, co-edited by Ken Jacobs, examines San Francisco's minimum wage experiment. Jacobs is chair of the Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California, Berkeley. The  2004-2011 study saw no harmful economic effects to the local economy. Overall private employment grew by 5.6 percent. Food service employment, a group most likely effected by minimum wage laws, grew by 17.7 percent, the highest rate among Bay Area counties.