 |
 |
Take action now and tell your lawmakers — We need the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.
Thanks for keeping it personal,
Thao Nguyen
Campaign Director
This Is Personal
Tag Archives: Washington
a message from Gov.Inslee
|
On November 7, Lawmakers returned to Olympia for an urgent special session of the legislature that I’ve called to secure the future of Washington’s aerospace industry and create jobs. I’ve been working with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to craft a jobs package that will guarantee the production of the Boeing 777X aircraft and their revolutionary carbon fiber wing in Washington state. This legislative package is a big deal. In just the last year, the 777 project alone created $20 billion in economic activity and supported 56,000 jobs in the state of Washington. This jobs package will help us build on that success and grow our entire state economy for the future. Here are a few key items I’m asking the legislature to pass without delay:
Every Washingtonian has a stake in the work we’re doing. We need to get this done now. If we can do this quickly, we can be certain that Washington’s aerospace future — and the jobs that come with it — will be even brighter than its past. Thanks for your help. Let’s go get ’em, Jay Inslee Governor |
Share this:
living wages
It’s Time to Raise the Minimum Wage
The White House and Senate Democrats are zeroing in on a plan to raise the minimum wage, which has not increased in more than four years, to $10.10 per hour. The Senate is expected to take up the plan sometime “very soon,” according to Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
The renewed effort in Congress to increase the minimum wage comes afterimportant victories at the ballot box this past Tuesday.
ThinkProgress outlines five reasons why we should raise the minimum wage:
1. It would bring it in line with inflation: While the federal minimum wage isn’t indexed to inflation (unlike some state minimum wages) and hasn’t been raised in four years, if it had kept up with inflation since its peak in the 1960s it would be over $10 an hour. Many fast food workers have been calling for a $15 minimum wage — a rate that will soon go into effect in a small town in Washington state — which is more in line with what civil rights activists demanded in the 1960s.
2. It would boost the economy: While opponents of a minimum wage increase claim that it will hurt job growth, research points to the opposite. There is little evidence that it would hurt jobs, but it would very likely help businesses through increasing demand, lowering turnover, and boosting prices and would give the economy a big boost thanks to more money in people’s pockets to spend on purchases.
3. It would lift millions out of poverty: Full-time minimum wage workers earn just $14,500 a year, which for someone with two kids means living $3,000 below the poverty line. The wage isn’t enough to make rent in any state. Raising it to $10.10 an hour, on the other hand, would lift nearly 6 million people out of poverty.
4. It would be a big help for women and people of color: People of color make up 42 percent of minimum wage workers despite representing just 32 percent of the overall workforce, and women make up two-thirds of the country’s minimum wage workers despite being half of the population. Raising the wage to $10.10 an hour would lift 3.5 million people of color out of poverty and help close the gender wage gap.
5. Americans support it: A recent poll showed that 80 percent of Americans support raising the wage to $10.10 an hour, and that includes two-thirds of Republicans and nearly 80 percent of those making $100,000 or more. On Tuesday, voters approved minimum wage increases in New Jersey and a town in Washington and they also approved raises in the 2012 elections in three other cities. In fact, when given the opportunity, voters nearly always approve minimum wage raises by substantial majorities.
Raising the minimum wage it’s just good policy, it’s “a political goldmine.” The issue is very popular and cuts across party lines. In fact, it’s the perfect issue to help Democrats attract more white working class voters.
BOTTOM LINE: Raising the minimum wage will be a huge boost to our economy. More money in the pockets of workers means more customers for businesses large and small, which in turn leads to a virtuous cycle that creates jobs and grows the economy.
Share this:
It’s in the numbers
|
||||||
Share this:
UCS and Nuclear Weapons
Nuclear weapons have become a security liability, not an asset. Since these weapons were first invented and used nearly 70 years ago, the world has become a much different place. The Cold War has been over for a quarter century, yet the United States and Russia still have thousands of nuclear weapons, hundreds of which are kept on hair-trigger alert, raising the risk of an accidental or unauthorized launch in the absence of any credible threat. Despite the president’s commitment not to build new nuclear weapons, the administration is now planning to spend tens of billions of dollars to do so. In 2009, President Obama pledged to seek a world free of nuclear weapons, but he must take strong steps now if we are to see any real progress during his tenure. —Karla
| This Just In | |
 |
The future of nuclear weapons in the United States? To safely reduce the number of nuclear weapons in this country, we must ensure that those we do have remain reliable, safe, and secure. But what does that require? A new UCS report, Making Smart Security Choices, takes a big-picture look at the laboratories and facilities that research, design, produce, and maintain nuclear weapons and recommends cost-effective changes that will improve national security and save taxpayers money. MORE |
Ask a Scientist
“How much does it cost to create a single nuclear weapon?”—Z. Witmond, New York, NY
Although the United States hasn’t built a new nuclear warhead or bomb since the 1990s, it has refurbished several types in recent years to extend their lifetime. It also plans to replace its entire arsenal with a suite of five new weapon types over the next 25 to 30 years, violating the spirit if not the letter of President Obama’s 2010 pledge not to develop new nuclear warheads. This plan, along with modest reductions in the U.S. arsenal of both deployed and reserve weapons, will cost taxpayers some $250 billion in the next few decades. That’s roughly equal to 30 years of federal funding for Head Start programs for kids at 2012 enrollment levels. MORE
Lisbeth Gronlund, Ph.D., Co-Director, Global Security Program
| Science in Action | |
 |
Missile defense: costly and unproven. There are much better ways to alleviate the threat of missile attack than by spending billions of dollars to build a missile defense system with an abysmal track record that will not make Americans safer. Urge your senators to oppose funding for costly, unproven, missile defense sites and to instead work to alleviate the threat posed by nuclear weapons in more sensible ways. |
Be a Seed for Change 
You must be logged in to post a comment.