A Historic Minimum Pay Hike on the Horizon for One American City

Want to reduce poverty? Increase the minimum wage. It’s that simple, say a handful of reports, and Seattle is on the verge of a city-wide raise.
On May 1, the mayor of the Pacific Northwest bastion announced an ambitious move to up the base wage there to $15 an hour — the highest of any major city worldwide, reports Quartz.
While workers cheer, a common business-owners’ lament is that increasing their costs will cut hiring and spur layoffs. But early data on a handful of areas that have boosted their pay scales suggests that businesses aren’t going under because of wage requirement bumps.
The bipartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that nudging the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 would put $31 billion in the pockets of American workers, 19 percent of that going to families currently living below the poverty line.
At the same time, however, the CBO estimates that some 500,000 would lose their jobs. But San Francisco saw none of the bust and all of the boom when it raised wage minimums to $10.74.
“Our data show that an increase up to $13 an hour has no measurable effect on employment,” Michael Reich, a University of California, Berkeley economics professor, told the Seattle Times. The same for Santa Fe: The minimum wage — upped from $5.15 to $8.50 in 2004 — “seemed to have helped workers and not hurt business too much,” researcher Nicholas Potter told the newspaper.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray‘s plan rolls out the increases over the next decade, and it still has to pass the city council. So while the local burger slingers can’t celebrate yet, they might be able to soon.

5 Secrets to Boosting Health Innovation

Even innovators in a booming field need a little help sometimes. That’s why health accelerator programs work to support medical technology startups by providing everything from financial capital to strategic guidance. In a review of industry practices, the California Healthcare Foundation has reported five ways to “maximize the value of healthcare accelerators” including providing access to healthcare professionals and making specialized connections in the marketplace.

The New Kind of Corporate Structure—Baking Social Good Right Into the Business Plan

Do you know B Corps? It’s a new kind of corporate structure, that lets U.S. businesses incorporate as a “public benefit corporation.” The idea for a B Corp is that doing good things for society and caring for the environment are part of the company’s DNA, along with being a profitable business. Currently, B Corp status is available in 16 states and D.C. And it’s not just for bigger companies, like green-cleaning giant Method or outdoor gear company Patagonia. (Who by the way have discovered that being a B Corp helps attract Millennial talent.) Even tiny micro-companies can do it and make a big impact. Get inspired by this 2013 list of top B Corps. Think of all the different ways your B Corp could help your customers and the communities where you work and live.