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Freeze the Summer Minimum Wage Hike
July 2009 · Kristen Lopez Eastlick · Cleveland Plain Dealer
Kristen Lopez Eastlick is a senior research analyst with the Employment Policies Institute, a nonprofit research organization dedicated to studying public policy issues surrounding entry-level employment. There’s no question that the nation’s unemployment situation is dire. Forty-eight states reported job losses for the month of May, contributing to a national unemployment rate that’s at a 25-year high. Minority teens and young adults have been hit especially hard.… -
Upcoming minimum wage hike will destroy needed jobs
July 2009 · Kristen Lopez Eastlick · Union Leader
There’s no question that the nation’s unemployment situation is dire. Forty-eight states reported job losses for the month of May, contributing to a national unemployment rate that’s at a 25-year high. Minority teens and young adults have been hit especially hard. The unemployment rate for black teens has skyrocketed to 38 percent, more than four times the national rate. Yet the millions of people looking for entry-level… -
Economy, minimum wage take a toll on teen jobs
July 2009 · Kristen Lopez Eastlick · Tallahassee Democrat
Do you remember your first job interview? Perhaps you had your heart set on a summer job as a lifeguard, waitress or movie attendant. Hopefully, this stress-inducing experience happened for the first time when you were a teenager, giving you the opportunity to tune up your interview skills. And once you secured that first job, you learned valuable, hands-on job skills such as reporting to a supervisor,… -
Are summer jobs ‘Going Out of Business’?
July 2009 · Kristen Lopez Eastlick · Charleston Gazette
Do you remember your first job interview? Perhaps you had your heart set on a summer job as a lifeguard, waitress or movie attendant. Hopefully this stress-inducing experience happened for the first time when you were a teenager, giving you the opportunity to tune up your interview skills. And once you secured that first job, you learned valuable, hands-on skills such as reporting to a supervisor, working… -
Businesses can’t afford an increase in minimum wage
February 2009 · Kristen Lopez Eastlick · Sheboygan Press
It’s a new economic reality in Wisconsin, and as the Legislature reconvenes, a minimum wage hike proposed for June is currently up for debate. But lawmakers should tread carefully: If history is any guide, inflating the wage rate is a move that will serve only to weaken small businesses and cause entry-level workers to lose their jobs. Increasing the minimum wage from $6.50 to $7.60 an hour,… -
Minimum wage increases hurt the poor
February 2009 · Tucson Citizen · Tucson Citizen
It’s been a hard year for owners of small businesses across the country. A car salesman in Arizona told the Reuters news agency that the economy has almost completely dried up sales at the dealership where he worked until he recently lost his job. Todd Gerardo of Gilbert said his layoff was not entirely unexpected. “The economy is just so bad that for the first time in…