Rep. Powers Hannley with prison reform advocates

Should Prisoners Be Paid Minimum Wage? (video)

The minimum wage in Arizona is $12 per hour. Arizona prisoners do a variety of jobs from manual labor to answering phones for the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT), for which they are paid anywhere between 10 cents to $3 per hour. The ADOT Service Arizona call center workers are the highest paid prisoners, but … Read more

Pure evil from the ‘Kochtopus’ – unconstrained predatory lending

Our lawless Republican legislators love loan sharks and predatory lenders. Remember the consumer rights fight we had over Jonathan “Payday” Paton and the payday loan industry in 2008? (From the archives, The Sun Sets on Payday Loans in Arizona). Neil Young wrote the song “rust never sleeps,” and neither does evil. It is omnipresent and … Read more

AG’s office effectively kills sub-minimum wage bill

Rep. Pamela Powers Hannley (D-Tucson) recently wrote for the blog, #AZ House Republicans Pass $7.25/hour Minimum Wage for Students (video): The worst vote of the 54th session has to be the Republican passage of the sub-minimum wage on Thursday. Rep. Travis Grantham’s HB2523 would allow employers to pay full time students, who work part time … Read more