Opponents of increasing the nation’s minimum wage always fall back on the argument that it doesn’t need to be raised because it’s mostly teenagers working part-time for extra pocket money who are getting that hourly figure (which right now is $7.25).

A new study shows that stereotype isn't true. In fact, the majority of minimum wage workers have completed some college, live in families making less than $40,000 a year and so are contributing to the family income, and are working full-time.

Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) District Council 35 , working with other area unions, the Greater Boston Labor Council and community groups, helped expose the exploitation of a group of Philadelphia workers hired by a subcontractor to renovate the Boston Marriott Copley Place hotel. Earlier this week, the workers were awarded $31,000 in back pay.

When you think of minimum wage workers, it’s a good bet firefighters don’t come to mind.

Yet in Scranton, Pa., firefighters are risking their lives rushing into burning buildings, all for $7.25 an hour.

This is a cross-post from Regs Talk, the National Employment Law  Project  ( NELP ) blog. Catherine Ruckelshaus is the legal co-director of NELP. 

Big drug companies’ salespeople don’t usually inspire much sympathy for being overworked or exploited. But last week’s Supreme Court decision in  Christopher v. GlaxoSmithKline   was a reminder that even pharmaceutical sales representatives, who brought a case for working 60-odd hours a week without being paid overtime, can face unfair working conditions that need to be checked.

This week marks the 74th anniversary of the Fair Labor Standards Act ( FLSA ), which established a minimum wage floor, outlawed some forms of child labor and discouraged overly long workweeks by requiring premium pay for any hours worked over 40 in a week. By paying time-and-a-half of one’s regular hourly wage for overtime, the policy is intended not only to compensate workers for long hours but also to promote work sharing or spreading by employers, who can hire additional workers for the extra hours needed. Especially in tough economic times, it’s a practice that is not only fair but makes good economic sense.

The majority of those paid the minimum wage are women: In 2011, more than 62 percent of minimum wage workers were women, compared with only 38 percent of male minimum wage workers, according to a new report by the Center for American Progress Action Fund .

It’s especially bad that women make up the majority of minimum wage earners because women are paid 77 cents for every dollar a typical man earns. Women of color are far more likely to hold low-wage jobs than men, and two-thirds of mothers now are either the breadwinners or co-breadwinners for their families.

Great catch by the Institute for Policy Studies ( IPS ).

The top new frustration facing the world’s super-rich? That may be, suggests The Wall Street Journal, “too many giant yachts and not enough places to park them.”

While the 90-plus degree April weather feels like summer, in Missouri congregations, neighborhoods and union halls, activists around the state have November on their minds. Every day, volunteers are collecting signatures to put initiatives on the ballot that would raise the minimum wage and put a cap on out-of-control payday loan interest rates. Because all signatures must be collected by mid-May, more folks are getting involved every day.

Who says economic policy has to be wonkish and dry? Not John Schmitt, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He gets right to the point in his new report, “ The Minimum Wage Is Too Damn Low .”

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) today introduced the Rebuild America Act. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says the bill would "achieve shared prosperity by putting America back to work, rebuilding our infrastructure, repairing our safety net and insisting that shared sacrifice start at the top—with Wall Street and the wealthiest Americans."

Let’s say you’re earning the $7.25-an-hour minimum wage. How many hours would you have to work to equal what a year of college costs? How about a year of family health insurance premiums?

The Center for Economic and Policy Research has crunched the numbers and they’re not pretty.