New Jersey Minimum Wage Rises By $1.00

Map of New Jersey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Effective Wednesday, New Jersey’s minimum wage will rise by $1 to $8.25 an hour, boosting the paychecks of more than 250,000 New Jerseyans and bumping up costs for businesses with low-wage workers.

While the wage increase is immediate, the reaction by businesses may take longer to assess – especially in light of the automatic annual increases voters approved in November, guaranteeing minimum-wage workers future raises.

Businesses will “over time decide how they’re going to deal with it,” said Thomas Bracken, president of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce. “I don’t think there’s going to be any huge impact in 2014 on employment statistics or anything of that nature.”

New Jersey is one of 13 states that will raise their minimum wage Wednesday, according to the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit that advocates for raising the wage.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140101_N_J__minimum_wage_to_rise_by__1_on_Jan__1.html#3TmFBGTdz1KdCXTH.99

More Expensive Gas Pushes US Consumer Prices Up

WASHINGTON (AP) – Higher gas costs drove up U.S. consumer prices in September for the second straight month.  Outside energy, there was little sign of inflation.

The Labor Department said Tuesday that the consumer price index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.6 percent last month, matching the August increase.  In the past 12 months, prices have increased 2 percent.  That’s in line with the Federal Reserve’s inflation target.

Excluding volatile food and energy costs, prices rose just 0.1 percent.  In the past year, so-called core prices have increased 2 percent.

Read more: http://business-news.thestreet.com/the-times-herald/story/more-expensive-gas-pushes-us-consumer-prices/1

Gasoline Pushes Inflation Up In January

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Gasoline prices jumped in January, leading overall consumer prices higher and offering a reminder of the risks energy costs pose to the economic recovery.

Despite the warning signal, overall consumer prices rose just 0.2 percent, the Labor Department said on Friday, which is unlikely to ring alarm bells at the Federal Reserve.

Strong jobs and factory data have eased worries U.S. economic growth could slow sharply, but tensions between Western nations and Iran still threaten to hand the economy a repeat of 2011 when a spike in energy prices hit the recovery hard.

Read more: http://www.mcall.com/business/sns-rt-us-usa-economytre7bm0ab-20120103,0,2516876.story

“Twelve Days Of Christmas” Items Top $100,000

Many people are familiar with the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas“.  Each year somebody figures out how much it would actually cost to give all these gifts.  This year is no exception thanks to PNC Financial Services and PNC Wealth Management.

This year’s high ticket item – seven swans-a-swimming.  It would set you back $6,300!  That is a 12.5 percent increase over last year.  The eight maids-a-milking would only set you back $58 because we are in a recession and they only get minimum wage, evidently.  The partridge, sans pear tree, would only set you back $15.

If you buy your gifts online, it would cost 16.1 percent more than schlepping to the store yourself.  Don’t forget that ordering online would include shipping live birds!

If you only bought one set of each item it would cost you $24,000 in stores and $39,860 online.  The $101,119 price tag would be if you purchased all 364 items or 12 sets of everything (one set for each verse).  That’s a LOT of repetition 🙂

Consumer Price Index Rose .5% In February

Image via Wikipedia

Now it is official and not just our imagination that money is not going as far as it used to!  The Consumer Price Index made its highest jump in two years last month.  Gas and food were the biggest culprits attributing to the gain.  Without those two items, there was only a .2 percent rise.

Gas prices rose 4.7 percent last month alone!  Food costs increased .6 percent.  Unfortunately, more prices increases are down the road.