Federal workers employed by contractors at low wages to operate concessions and clean federal buildings walked off the job today to urge President Barack Obama to use his executive authority to establish a living wage requirement for contractors that do business with the government.

Today, low-wage workers employed by federal contractors are striking. @barackobama could give them a #livingwage with the stroke of a pen.

— Economic Policy Inst (@EconomicPolicy) September 25, 2013

Nearly 2 million people who are employed through federal contractors earn less than $24,000 a year. That’s more low-wage workers than any private company, including Walmart and McDonald's, combined. At the 43rd annual Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's recent Legislative Conference, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) moderated a panel discussion on those low-wage workers and ways to improve their wages and working conditions.

The minimum wage has recently been in the news because of the fast-food workers’ strike for $15 an hour. Critics claim that would cause unemployment. There is a tipping point, but we don't really know where that is. The principal reason minimum wage increases have not led to disemployment effects is that the minimum has been so far below a market clearing wage. In the case of the fast-food industry increases, so long as they are below the tipping point, they are likely to lead to increases in employment because the fast-food industry is a labor monopsony. That is, they are the principal employers of minimum wage workers.

On Thursday, fast-food and other low-wage workers in more than three dozen cities will boost their campaign for a living wage and justice with a nationwide one-day strike. The workers and the faith, community and labor groups that back them are calling for a living wage of $15 an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation.

Walmart reported last week that sales at its U.S. stores had unexpectedly declined. Walmart tried to explain its shrinking sales away by citing outside factors such as higher gas prices and payroll taxes.

But, say many market observers, the real cause lies within Walmart itself—the largest private-sector employer in the United States and the poster child for low-wages.  

Shenita Simon is a shift supervisor at a New York City KFC. The mother of two started out at $7.25 an hour two years ago and now earns $8 an hour. Taking part in the nationwide wave of fast-food strikes earlier this month, she tells BillMoyers.com:

$7.25 is not enough for the workers. They gave me $8 to shut me up. But obviously it’s not working….It’s a struggle, a great struggle. 

A group of workers at the mall fixture Forever 21 clothing stores might be stuck forever in poverty without health insurance and paid time off now that execs at the trendy youth fashion chain have decided to reclassify some of the full-time sales, stock and maintenance workers, along with cashiers and other store employees, as part-time workers, allowed just 29.5 hours of work a week.

The outrage over the cold, corporate move is flooding the Forever 21 Facebook page, with most vowing never to shop at Forever 21—well, forever.

Meet Shenita Simon. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her husband and three young daughters. She earns $8 an hour as a shift supervisor at a Brooklyn KFC.

“It’s not enough to support us,” says Simon, whose husband also works. “I work hard to provide for my family. In 2012, my overtime hours were routinely paid in the following week’s check as regular hours.”

Thousands and thousands of fast-food and other low-wage workers this week have walked off the job in a series of one-day strikes in cities across the country. They are demanding a living wage, no retaliation for striking and the right to join unions. Those strikes are continuing today and likely into next week too.

In the biggest strike yet in the growing fast-food/low-wage workers’ actions demanding a voice, thousands of workers making the minimum wage or just slightly more walked off the job in several cities today, demanding a living wage, no retaliation for striking and the right to join unions.