Bikes Creates JOBS in France, England, Germany, Spain

Cycling is a bigger job creator in Europe than anything we are doing here in America

byWalter EinenkelFollowforweinenkel

 
 
• 12 Comments / 12 New

I am a touch late to this information but it seems pretty important. The first large-scale study on cycling's economic benefits was published about a year ago. In it the researchers tried to quantify the economic benefits of cycling. They looked at health costs, fuel savings (oil), the reduction in infrastructural stress to cities (people biking versus using traditional vehicles), reductions in air and noise pollution as well as reduced CO2 emissions. On top of that they looked into cycling and the tourism industry as well as the retail and bike maintenance industry.They found out some interesting, pretty exciting things:

On just two wheels, the industry is creating more jobs than Europe’s high-fashion footwear industry (388,000 jobs), its well-established steel sector (410,000), and the United States’ Big Three automobile companies (Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler) combined (510,000).

Cycling, it turns out, is not a bad way of reducing our carbon footprint, while continuing to grow our economies. Hopefully, studies like this one will provide European (and maybe American) governments/municipalities the evidence needed to up their cycling-related budgets.  

ORIGINALLY POSTED TO WEINENKEL ON TUE DEC 09, 2014 AT 11:44 AM PST.

ALSO REPUBLISHED BY VELOCIPEDE VANGUARD.

TAGS

Illegal Low Pay for Fast Food Workers

SAT DEC 06, 2014 AT 10:55 AM PST

This week in the war on workers: Many workers paid below minimum wage, even though that's illegal

byLaura Clawson

 

Minimum-wage violations are, for instance, suuuper common in fast food.

Steven Greenhouse shows why it's such a shame he's leaving the New York Times (more on that below), with a story on what he politely calls "minimum-wage violations" and others would call wage theft:

The United States Labor Department says that a new study shows that between 3.5 and 6.5 percent of all the wage and salary workers in California and New York are paid less than the minimum wage. [...]

The minimum-wage violations in those two states translate into $20 million to $29 million in lost income per week, the study concluded. Those amounts represent 38 percent of the income of the victimized workers in New York and 49 percent of the income of victimized workers in California.

This has material consequences, as workers who are not paid what they are legally owed are impoverished by these violations of wage laws, and are in turn forced to rely more heavily on government assistance. There's also a fundamental question of respect, for the workers and their time, and for the laws of this nation that say employers are required to pay the minimum wage and, where applicable, overtime.

And we need more reporters covering stories like this instead of centering economic reporting on bosses and billionaires, which is why—circling back to where I started—it's such a shame to see the Times lose Greenhouse.