Minimum Wage

DEAR HARRY: I'm a 44-year-old married father of two. I make $65,000 a year, and my job is secure. My wife is a homemaker as we have a sick child. We are under a huge mountain of debt. Besides our first mortgage, we are maxed out on our home-equity loan at $40,000 and we owe $35,000 on credit cards. Our total monthly minimum payments are $950. There's no available equity in our home to refinance, and the debt load is just too much to carry. Our only available asset is my 401(k) plan that has about $165,000 in it. I see no other option but withdraw enough from this account to put us on a better playing field.

SCRANTON - This struggling city has secured a $6.25 million loan to cover its current payroll and some back wages. Scranton officials closed Thursday on the loan from Amalgamated Bank. The money will cover Friday's $1.1 million payroll, City Solicitor Paul Kelly told the Scranton Times-Tribune. Kelly said it would also allow payment of $750,000 in back wages. In June, the mayor temporarily slashed the pay of about 400 city workers to minimum wage, saying the city was nearly broke.

Violating society's core values For decades, the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council has been a disgrace to the American labor movement ("Union-developer standoff: Is it time for intervention?" Friday). While progressive unions have fought at the bargaining table to better the wages and working conditions of underpaid and abused workers, the Building Trades have used violence and intimidation to ensure that nonmembers are excluded from high-paying construction work.

Too bad New Jersey Democrats couldn't keep their promise to raise the minimum wage by July 1.   If they had, the Economic Policy Institute says, the 307,000 workers who now make less than the proposed $8.50 an hour in the nation's fifth most expensive state would have been able to spend an additional $278 million on local goods and services, which in turn would have created 2,420 jobs. Instead of lifting up hardworking people and helping the state's economy, the Legislature and Gov. Christie spent the months leading up to July arguing over whether to give residents an income-tax or a property-tax break.

Gov. Christie wanted bail reform, elimination of payouts for public workers' unused sick days, and an end to seniority rules that make young teachers the most vulnerable to layoffs. The Democrats' wish list included raising the minimum wage, fully restoring a tax credit to the working poor, and creating a penalty to be levied on towns that won't share municipal services. Neither side has accomplished any of those goals, at least not yet. The hallmark bill of the first quarter of the 2013-14 legislative session - a measure that would restructure the state's higher-education system - was so complex and contentious that it sucked up much of lawmakers' time and delayed other initiatives.

Gov. Christie wanted bail reform, elimination of payouts for public workers' unused sick days, and an end to seniority rules that make young teachers the most vulnerable to layoffs. The Democrats' wish list included raising the minimum wage, fully restoring a tax credit to the working poor, and creating a penalty to be levied on towns that won't share municipal services. Neither side has accomplished any of those goals, at least not yet. The hallmark bill of the first quarter of the 2013-14 legislative session - a measure that would restructure the state's higher-education system - was so complex and contentious that it sucked up much of lawmakers' time and delayed other initiatives.

SCRANTON - Officials in Pennsylvania's sixth-largest city said Thursday that they are unable to pay employees more than minimum wage despite a judge's order that they fulfill their contract obligations. Mayor Chris Doherty's plan to pay nearly 400 employees no more than the $7.25-per-hour minimum wage stems from a political stalemate over how to resolve a massive cash shortfall in the city's operating budget. Doherty told the Scranton Times-Tribune that he respected the opinion of Lackawanna County Court Judge Michael Barrasse, but that the city simply didn't have the money for the paychecks that it was supposed to hand employees on Friday.

TRENTON — The Assembly on Thursday approved a bill that would increase the state's minimum hourly wage to $8.50 on July 1. If passed by the Senate, the measure would go to Gov. Christie, who has not said whether he would sign it. The 46-33 vote came down largely along party lines, with only one Democrat, Assemblyman Matthew Milam (Cumberland), voting against it. Democrats control both chambers in Trenton. Republican lawmakers argued that the state's economy is too fragile to handle a rise in business labor costs.

DOVER, DEL. - A bill that would allow illegal immigrants in Delaware to pay in-state tuition at colleges and universities has failed to clear a Senate committee. The so-called DREAM Act, which stands for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, failed to win enough votes Wednesday to be released by the Senate Education Committee. The bill would have permitted undocumented students to pay tuition and fees at the in-state, resident rate at the University of Delaware, Delaware State University and Delaware Technical and Community College.