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.

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.  

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.”

Low-wage workers in seven cities Monday will walk off their jobs in several prominent fast food chains and retail outlets to demand a living wage, the right to form unions and an end to what they say are unfair labor practices.

The strike will come on the heels of a new report released by the National Employment Law Project (NELP). The report says although companies claim these low-wage jobs are a step toward good careers, opportunities to advance are limited for front-line workers in the fast-food industry. 

industry. 

Many of us and our families have felt the pinch of stagnant wages during the past several years, and a new study shows that while real wages (adjusted for inflation) fell by 2.8% across the board between 2009 and 2012, low- and middle-wage workers—especially women—took the brunt of the hit.  

When payday rolls around, more and more workers aren’t getting paper paychecks or direct deposits to their checking accounts, but instead are finding their wages on prepaid cards.

The new trend—especially  prevalent in low-wage industries—saves the employer money,  and means big (and mostly unregulated) profits for the banks and financial institutions that issue the cards. It also eats big chunks of the workers’ pay though a bevy of fees they must pay to access their accounts.

Last week, Walmart said it would speed up its plan to hire returning military veterans that it had announced in January. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says Walmart’s latest move “is more about public relations than honoring our heroes.”

We owe it to our returning veterans to make sure they are treated as the heroes they are, rather than as symbols used to ‘greenwash’ Walmart’s eroding brand. After facing enemies abroad, is an $8.81 an hour part-time job the best we can offer returning veterans?

After President Obama called for raising the nation’s minimum wage to $9 an hour and protecting it against inflation, the struggle that millions of low-wage workers face trying to survive on the current $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage is back on the nation’s radar screen.

Recently NBC News took a look at “the workers who answer your customer service calls, deliver your pizzas, take care of your children, bag your groceries and serve your food,” including Crystal Dupont, 25, who takes customer service calls in the Houston apartment she shares with her mother who has disabilities.