Wall Street Journal (June 24)
“Food-delivery apps responded to cities’ new wage increase requirements for gig workers by ratcheting up fees. Now, they are contending with frustrated consumers, plunging restaurant orders and an exodus of delivery drivers.” In response, Seattle plans to roll back the tighter regulation based on “outcry from drivers and restaurants over its devastating” effect.
Tags: Apps, Cities, Consumers, Drivers, Exodus, Fees, Food-delivery, Frustrated, Gig workers, Orders, Outcry, Regulation, Restaurants, Seattle, Wages
Bloomberg (October 14)
“Ernst & Young LLP took Bernie Madoff at his word when it signed off on audits of a fund that helped feed the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history. The firm must now defend that decision at the first trial of an auditor over losses tied to Madoff, who’s serving a 150-year prison term for stealing billions of dollars from thousands of investors.” The case will be tried by jury in a state court in Seattle and comes just after “the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the lead U.S. audit regulator, warns that one in three audit opinions in the U.S. lack appropriate supporting evidence.”
Tags: Audits, Bernie Madoff, Ernst & Young, Evidence, Investors, PCAOB, Ponzi scheme, Prison, Regulator, Seattle, Trial, U.S.
Los Angeles Times (September 1)
“An increase in the minimum wage would not only be good for low-wage workers. It would also be good for the city, good for the economy and, in the long term, good for business. It is, simply put, the right thing to do.” September 1 marks Labor Day in the U.S. where the federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Some states and cities adopt higher minimums as Mayor Eric Garcetti has proposed for Los Angeles, where 28% of the population lives below the poverty level. If the proposal passes, L.A.’s new minimum of $13.25 would still be lower than Seattle’s, which is set to rise to $15.
Tags: Business, Economy, Eric Garcetti, Labor Day, Los Angeles, Minimum wage, Poverty level, Seattle, U.S., Workers
Washington Post (June 6)
“Vying for the title of the United States’ most progressive city, Seattle this week decided to raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour.” Amidst the applause and the doomsayers, however, lies the truth. Nobody knows how this experiment will end. “Despite literally hundreds of studies focusing on the minimum wage, top economists are still uncertain about the consequences of raising it.”
Tags: Consequences, Doomsayers, Economists, Experiment, Minimum wage, Progressive, Seattle, Studies, U.S., Uncertain
