A ballot initiative to raise Arizona’s minimum wage has (once again) been cleared for a vote in November. The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld an earlier decision to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the validity of signatures gathered in support of the initiative, Proposition 206, which proposes to increase wages…
A Maricopa County Superior Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit challenging thousands of signatures gathered in support of an initiative to increase Arizona’s minimum wage, clearing the way for it to appear on the ballot. Given that it hinged on the minutiae of Arizona law concerning ballot initiatives, it was…
Social scientists have a term for young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who aren’t in school and don’t have jobs: disconnected youth. Starbucks has a plan for them. Late last week, the Seattle-based caffeinater to the masses held a press conference to unveil a free job-training program for…
Clipboards in hand, they wave down grocery shoppers and fairgoers, sweat dripping down their faces in the 120-degree Phoenix sun. “Hey, can you sign a petition?” In what appears a noble testament to the cause of the day — raising the minimum wage, legalizing marijuana — they keep at it…
A Maricopa County Superior Court judge Thursday threw out a substantial number of signatures gathered in support of a voter initiative to raise Arizona’s minimum wage to $12 an hour. Judge Joshua Rogers struck many of the signatures by default because the people who gathered them, some of whom were…
As Arizona’s housing market continues its recovery, homebuilders are struggling to find enough skilled workers to keep up with the demand for new houses — and that’s leading to costly delays. Arizona employed 244,300 construction workers at the peak of the housing boom in 2006, according to the Bureau of Labor…
Arizona voters will likely get to decide this fall whether to raise the state’s minimum wage and mandate employers to provide paid sick time. The Arizona Healthy Working Families campaign submitted 271,883 signatures to the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office on July 7. If at least 150,642 of the signatures…
Cady Gokey understands the concerns some people have about bottled-water plants in drought-stricken Phoenix. But she also knows what people want: a cool drink of bottled water. As president of Sedona Bottling Company, the 28-year-old oversees a small water factory in a nondescript West Phoenix industrial park. The 20-year-old company…
Voters this year may be asked not only to decide whether Arizona should raise the minimum wage, but also by how much. Two groups on opposite sides of the issue are pushing November ballot measures to address the issue: the workers’-rights organization Arizonans for Fair Wages and Healthy Families; and…
Of the 150 largest cities in the nation, the one with the highest median income for Hispanics is…Gilbert, Arizona! That’s according to a recent analysis by WalletHub. The personal-finance website found that when adjusted for cost of living, median income for Hispanics in Gilbert is four times higher than the figure for Hispanics…
The people of Scottsdale are the hardest working in Arizona and the sixth-hardest working in the United States, according to a new report. To calculate the ranking, the data crunchers at Wallethub analyzed the average number of hours worked per week, the labor force participation rate, and average leisure time per…
With two weeks until payday, Shefik Tallmadge, then 29, used his last $5 in his pocket to purchase a lottery ticket at a Circle K in Yuma. When he checked his ticket the following day, he learned he’d won Arizona’s largest jackpot in the Pick lottery at the time —…
A count of the homeless people living in Maricopa County will take place later this month in an effort to learn who’s experiencing homelessness and the resources they need. The Maricopa Association of Governments coordinates the Point-in-Time homeless count in Maricopa County each year to secure homeless-assistance funding from the…
Young, environmentally conscious Phoenix-area residents are facing obstacles in attempting to downsize into incredibly small homes. Chris and Ashley Clemmons are among the Arizona pioneers in the tiny-home movement, but after spending the past year building their custom, 167-square-foot dwelling in a warehouse on her parents’ property in Scottsdale, they…
Arizona is now one of 24 states officially suing the Environmental Protection Agency over President Obama’s flagship carbon-emissions-reduction initiative, the Clean Power Plan. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who has been talking about suing the EPA for months, announced that his office and the Arizona Corporaton Commission jointly signed onto…
U.S., Representative Raúl Grijalva will announce a bill this afternoon designed to permanently ban uranium mining in the Grand Canyon watershed. The Tucson congressman’s measure, officially called the Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument Act, calls for protecting the area by declaring the region a national monument. According to a…
Eviela Carrera came to the United States, like many immigrants do, to give her four children a better life. But, making just $8.30 an hour assembling chicken sandwiches and cleaning the broiler at a Phoenix Burger King, the Mexican native is struggling to hold onto this hope. She’d like to…
Tempe-based multi-level marketing company Vemma Nutrition duped impressionable college-student sales people out of millions of dollars by paying them little or nothing, according to a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit that has has led to severe restrictions on the business.. The FTC filed suit against Vemma after receiving complaints that the company…
The strip-mall computer casino in Phoenix has no business name on its door. The most prominent sign on the glass storefront warns patrons not to loiter. Two heavy blankets hang from the ceiling just inside the front doors, blocking light and any view of the interior from the parking lot…
The Arizona Department of Gaming and Phoenix police raided a Phoenix Internet cafe on Wednesday, arresting the manager in connection with an illegal gambling operation. Bradley John Babinski, Jr., 28, was arrested after 1 p.m. yesterday following an investigation of the Netclix Internet Cafe at 3575 North Dunlap Avenue in…
Arizona legislators are framing their recent determination to impose a 12-month lifetime cap on welfare benefits and cut off assistance to some 1,600 families as a way to motivate the poor to take care of themselves. “I tell my kids all the time that the decisions we make have rewards…
Inside the McDonald’s at 1205 South Rural Road in Tempe, dinner guests sipped on soft drinks, munched on burgers, and surfed Facebook on their laptops. Outside, 600 protesters lapped up against the building, plastering signs to the windows and yelling, “Keep your burgers! Keep your fries! We want wages supersized!”…
