Word: boosting
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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With the U.S. trillions of dollars in the hole, 70 cents an hour sounds like chump change. But it's a big boost for the millions of workers who earn that much extra as of July 24. The increase is the third and final uptick in a hike that has since 2007 boosted the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25. In total, the extra $2 and change translates into a yearly raise of some $4,400 for a full-time minimum-wage worker, nosing his or her family of four above the poverty line. (See 10 ways your...
Supporters of the boost say it will help the country's neediest at a time when they have been falling further and further behind. From 1973 to 2007, as the minimum wage fell 22% in real dollars, domestic corporate profits jumped more than 50%-bloating the gap between rich and poor and fueling calls for a $10-an-hour "living wage" by 2010. For now, though, an extra 70 cents is as good as it gets...
Conservative supporters hail the law as a reformist boost for France's recession-stalled economy. But detractors on both the left and right just as energetically decry it as a vulgar consumerist assault on tradition, families and even French democracy. "We've got better things to propose to our fellow citizens than a life of commuting, sleeping and buying," lamented André Lardeux, one of many senators from the ruling Union for a Popular Majority party who defied President Nicolas Sarkozy by voting against his pet law to liberalize Sunday commerce. (See pictures of President Sarkozy in London...
...danger of being the only ones standing in the way. The process also inspired some participants to respond in good faith; several Catholic endorsers who do not support contraception did not let that stop them from giving their full backing to the bill. President Barack Obama provided an additional boost in his commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame, in which he urged groups to come together to reduce the number of abortions. "This Administration has lowered the provocation levels," says Joel Hunter, a pro-life Evangelical who supports the Ryan-DeLauro bill. "That's allowed all of those...
...government stimulus efforts have been large and effective. Money in China has been especially easy to find. Aggregate new bank lending surged 201% in the first half of 2009 from the same period a year earlier, to nearly $1.1 trillion. Exuberance over a quick recovery - which was given a boost by China's surprisingly strong 7.9% GDP growth in the second quarter - has buoyed investor sentiment not just for stocks but also for real estate. According to government data, new home prices in 36 Chinese cities rose 6.3% in June from a year earlier. The property sector is showing signs...