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New Jersey Set to Raise Minimum Wage January 1, 2024

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the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Trenton NJ, New Jersey is set to become one of a handful of states with a minimum wage of at least $15/hour on January 1, 2024 when the rate increases to $15.13/hour, surpassing the goal set by Governor Murphy and the Legislature in 2019.

Continue reading New Jersey Set to Raise Minimum Wage January 1, 2024

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No Doubt the ‘Trump Bump’ Is Real

Pence and  Trump

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Washington DC, is the “Trump Bump ” real , it certainly looks that way . Even states perusing disastrously bad anti -business ,anti-job  policies like New Jersey are benefiting.

Continue reading No Doubt the ‘Trump Bump’ Is Real

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NJ Contractor Pleads Guilty to Cheating “Illegal Immigrants” Out of Wages

illegal immigration and undocumented immigrants1

the staff of the Rdgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, the report from the NJ AG office proves the point as to why the state should not encourage “illegal immigration”. Policies like sanctuary status and not allowing the police to check on immigration status merely encourage the following types of activities .

Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal announced that an Ocean County construction contractor pleaded guilty today to purposely not paying prevailing wages on a government contract valued over $75,000. As part of his criminal activity, the contractor falsified payroll records for the public contract to cover up the fact that he paid most of his employees only a fraction of the wages required under the Prevailing Wage Act, while not paying others at all. It is believed that many of the defendant’s employees were undocumented immigrants and he took advantage of their status.

Continue reading NJ Contractor Pleads Guilty to Cheating “Illegal Immigrants” Out of Wages
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Property tax cap growing weaker across North Jersey; more towns than ever exceed 2% limit

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file photo by Boyd Loving

BY DAVE SHEINGOLD AND JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD

Reforms enacted in 2011 to keep the nation’s highest property taxes in check are showing signs of weakening as a growing number of New Jersey towns fail to stay within the 2 percent cap on increases that formed the cornerstone of the effort.

 

https://www.northjersey.com/news/property-tax-cap-growing-weaker-across-north-jersey-more-towns-than-ever-exceed-2-limit-1.1526980

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Obamanomics : Shoppers may be losing their holiday spirit

Holiday Spirit

NOVEMBER 28, 2015    LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2015, 1:21 AM
BLOOMBERG NEWS |
WIRE SERVICE

Could Americans be losing their holiday spending spirit? More than 20 years of retail sales data suggest it’s a distinct possibility.

U.S. retailers have come to rely on a shopping frenzy toward the end of the year, as the annual gift-giving season compels people to open their wallets. That holiday bump, though, appears to be shrinking.

Last year, December’s share of annual retail sales (excluding gasoline) amounted to 9.9 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That compares with a high point of 10.6 percent in 1993 — a difference worth more than $30 billion. Although the holiday boost tends to fluctuate with economic cycles, the trend is down. Here’s how that looks:

What’s going on? Black Friday could be partly responsible, if retailers have pulled some of the holiday action into November with deep discounts and special opening hours. However, that particular shopping event is on the wane. And even combining sales for November and December doesn’t do much to change the long-term trend.

Another potential explanation is that the kinds of items people buy around the holidays — Xboxes, iPads and the like — have become relatively cheap, because of the efforts of Chinese manufacturers. This would make the dollar value of December’s spending look smaller, even if people were purchasing just as many items. That said, prices on imports from China are higher than they were a decade ago, so maybe not.

There’s also a more troubling possibility: Declining incomes may have left a large portion of Americans less willing to splurge. The median U.S. household income has fallen more than 3 percent over the past decade in inflation-adjusted terms. December’s share of spending tends to suffer when budgets are tighter, as evidenced by the sharp drop during the 2008 recession.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/business/holiday-shopping-frenzy-on-the-wane-1.1464053

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‘America is a bomb waiting to explode’

Obama-Golf

Sam Gerrans is an English writer, translator, support counselor and activist. He also has professional backgrounds in media, strategic communications and technology. He is driven by commitment to ultimate meaning, and focused on authentic approaches to revelation and realpolitik. He is the founder of Quranite.com – where the Qur’an is explored on the basis of reason rather than tradition – and offers both individual language training and personal support and counseling online at SkypeTalking.com.
Published time: 18 Oct, 2015 10:27

The United States is in decline. While not all major shocks to the system will be devastating, when the right one comes along, the outcome may be dramatic.

Not all explosives are the same. We all know you have to be careful with dynamite. Best to handle it gently and not smoke while you’re around it.

Semtex is different. You can drop it. You can throw it. You can put it in the fire. Nothing will happen. Nothing until you put the right detonator in it, that is.

To me, the US – and most of the supposedly free West – increasingly looks like a truck being systematically filled with Semtex.

But it’s easy to counter cries of alarm with the fact that the truck is stable – because it’s true: you can hurl more boxes into the back without any real danger. Absent the right detonator, it is no more dangerous than a truckload of mayonnaise.

But add the right detonator and you’re just one click away from complete devastation.

We can see how fragile the U.S. is now by considering just four tendencies.

1. Destruction of farms and reliable food source

The average American is a long way from food when the shops are closed.

The Washington Post reports that the number of farms in the country has fallen by some 4 million from more than 6 million in 1935 to roughly 2 million in 2012.

And according to the College of Agriculture & Life Sciences, only about 2 percent of the US population live on farms.

That means that around 4.6 million people currently have the means to feed themselves.

Food supply logistics are extended, sometimes stretching thousands of miles. The shops have nothing more than a few days’ stock. A simple break in that supply line would clear the shops out in days.

2. Weak economic system

The American economic system is little more than froth.

The US currency came off the gold standard in 1933 and severed any link with gold in 1971. Since then, the currency has been essentially linked to oil, the value of which has been protected and held together by wars.

The whole world has had enough of the US and its hubris – not least the people of the US themselves, which the massive support currently for Putin’s decision to deal with ISIS demonstrates.

Since pro-active war is what keeps the US going, if it loses the monopoly on that front, its decline is inevitable.

Fiat economies always collapse. They last on average for 37 years. By that metric the US should have already run out of gas.

Once people wake up and smell the Yuan, the Exodus out of the dollar will be unstoppable.

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/318986-america-bomb-society-crisis/

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Report: Many Americans’ Paychecks Have Shrunk Since Recession

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Report: Many Americans’ Paychecks Have Shrunk Since Recession

Philip Wegmann / @PhilipWegmann / August 12, 2014

Today many Americans are taking home a smaller paycheck than they used to, according to a study released Monday by the United States Conference of Mayors.

According to the report, people who worked in job sectors particularly hard hit by the recession had an average salary of $61,637 before the recession. But when it comes to jobs gained after the downturn, the average wage was $47,171 dollars.

“The wage gap has nearly doubled from one recession to the next.” – United States Conference of Mayors.

Conditions have become worse since the last recession, when the internet bubble burst. At that time, the Conference of Mayors measured the wage gap at 12 percent, about half of today’s 23 percent.

“While the economy is picking up steam,” said Conference president and Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson, “wage gaps are an alarming trend that must be addressed.”

https://dailysignal.com/2014/08/12/report-many-americans-paychecks-shrunk-since-recession/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

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Men Who Work Full-Time Earn Less Than 40 Years Ago

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Men Who Work Full-Time Earn Less Than 40 Years Ago

April 28, 2014 – 12:48 PM
By Terence P. Jeffrey

(CNSNews.com) – The real median income of American men who work full-time, year-round peaked forty years ago in 1973, according todata published by the U.S. Census Bureau.

In 1973, median earnings for men who worked full-time, year-round were $51,670 in inflation-adjusted 2012 dollars. The median earnings of men who work full-time year-round have never been that high again.

https://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/men-who-work-full-time-earn-less-40-years-ago

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Union: Obamacare will slash wages by up to $5 an hour

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Union: Obamacare will slash wages by up to $5 an hour

By Paul Bedard | MARCH 9, 2014 AT 11:15 AM

A national union that represents 300,000 low-wage hospitality workers charges in a new report that Obamacare will slam wages, cut hours, limit access to health insurance and worsen the very “income equality” President Obama says he is campaigning to fix.

Unite Here warned that due to Obamacare’s much higher costs for health insurance than what union workers currently pay, the result will be a pay cut of up to $5 an hour. “If employers follow the incentives in the law, they will push families onto the exchanges to buy coverage. This will force low-wage service industry employees to spend $2.00, $3.00 or even $5.00 an hour of their pay to buy similar coverage,” said the union in a new report.

“Only in Washington could asking the bottom of the middle class to finance health care for the poorest families be seen as reducing inequality,” said the report from Unite Here. “Without smart fixes, the ACA threatens the middle class with higher premiums, loss of hours, and a shift to part-time work and less comprehensive coverage,” said the report, titled, “The Irony of Obamacare: Making Inequality Worse.”

https://washingtonexaminer.com/big-labor-obamacare-death-spiral-to-worker-pay-insurance-coverage/article/2545310