Kecia Jolley is getting a pay raise this week. But she’s still making minimum wage.
Jolley works as a grocery store cashier in Missouri — one of nearly two dozen states that increased their minimum wages on Jan. 1. Economists say those mandatory wage hikes are an important factor boosting pay for workers at the bottom of the income ladder.
Jolley’s Friday paycheck will be the first to reflect Missouri’s 2020 minimum of $9.45 an hour, up from $8.60 last year.
“I think that I’ll be better off,” she says. “But I think that it’s going to still be a struggle.”
Jolley says her paycheck will still barely cover rent and utilities. She relies on food stamps and school lunches to help feed her three children — ages 6, 11 and 14. Jolley is grateful that a ballot measure passed by Missouri voters in 2018 calls for three additional increases in the minimum wage over the next three years. By 2023, the minimum will climb to $12 an hour.
“I would consider that at least a decent living wage,” Jolley says. “Then people can pay their bills. They can possibly get a few things on their ‘wants’ list every month. Like, kids need new clothes. Or — I’m a girl. I ran out of mascara, like, a month ago. Luxury items such as new socks.”
While the federal minimum wage hasn’t changed in more than a decade — it’s still $7.25 an hour — many cities and states have adopted higher thresholds. In Arizona, Colorado and Maine the minimum wage is already $12 an hour. Minimums are higher still in California, Massachusetts and Washington state.
Puerto Rico was hit by a magnitude 6.4 earthquake today, knocking out power across the island and killing at least 1 person. Mutual Aid Disaster Relief, an autonomous disaster response organization that has done tons of work following Hurricane Maria, has asked for donations to its Puerto Rico Rebuilds fund to help those affected
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This Migrant Won In Immigration Court, And The U.S. Sent Him To Mexico Anyway
For a moment, Jesus thought his ordeal was coming to an end. Three months after fleeing Venezuela, he got his chance to tell a judge how he and his mother escaped political persecution.
“The judge asked me three questions,” Jesus said in Spanish through an interpreter. “What’s your nationality? Why did you leave your country? Why can’t you go back?”
Jesus asked NPR not to use his last name because he wants to protect relatives who are still in Venezuela. He doesn’t speak English, and he didn’t have a lawyer at the time of his immigration court hearing. Still, he felt the judge really understood his story.
“I explained my case to him. And he accepted my experience,” Jesus said.
The judge granted Jesus withholding of removal, a form of protection from deportation. In other words, he won — something that very few migrants at the border can say these days. Jesus thought he might finally be allowed into the U.S., where he could reunite with his family.
Instead, immigration officers told him he was going back to Mexico, where he’d already spent nearly three months waiting to see a judge.
A statue depicts the young Ranefer as a handsome, athletic and a muscular man wearing a short kilt tied at the waist and a simple short wig. He is portrayed in the traditional pose, advancing with the left leg forward, his hands by his sides holding two cylinders, having a serious expression and a look which is gazing into the distance beyond earthly life.
This splendid statue was found with another statue for him too, almost identical, in two niches in the chapel at his tomb at Saqqara. This one shows him in the flush of youth while the other in old age.
Ranefer was a High Priest of Ptah and Seker in Memphis at the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 5th Dynasty. His name means “Ra is beautiful”. His main title was “greatest of the directors of craftsmen belonging to the day of festival”. This is a variation of the title normally assigned to the High Priest of Ptah.
Old Kingdom, 5th Dynasty, ca. 2494-2345 BC. Painted limestone, from Saqqara Necropolis. Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. JE 10063
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