Labor Day News: Low Wages Impact Children, Families, and Educators

Friday marked the nine-year anniversary of the stagnant minimum wage.

For shame! This week, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities decries the failure of the U.S. Congress to enact a minimum wage raise in the past nine years. (The last hike was on September 1, 1997, when the minimum wage was raised to a paltry $5.15 per hour).

The Center’s full report makes the connection between the inadequate minimum wage and the growing earnings gap in America.

Our country’s educators are among those impacted by the earnings gap. There were two great pieces this week on the financial circumstances of teachers.

Hubert Herring, at the New York Times, gives a short and pithy reflection on the contrast between the pay of CEO’s and that of teachers. Not groundbreaking. But well-stated.

Washington Post reporter Sandhya Somashekhar describes the back-to-school classroom materials that teachers choose to pay for themselves, rather than let their students go without.