More than four-in-five of fast food workers in New York City say they have been victims of wage theft or work hour abuse at their jobs, according to a survey released today from Fast Food Forward, an advocacy group that has been aligned with striking restaurant workers across the city.

Workers at New York City fast food chains have staged multiple one-day strikes in recent months, first in November and most recently in April. The strikes have centered on claims of low-wages, the lack of health and retirement benefits, and their inability to organize unions without intimidation from employers, and the survey’s numbers lend credence to their wage claims:

More than 8-in-10 employees (84%) report being victims of wage theft over the course of the last year; 66% report at least two abuses, 45% report at least three, and more than thirty percent of employees (31%) report being victims of at least four of these practices. Specifically:

• 36% of workers report being required to work while off the clock
• 32% of cashiers report being required to pay their employer if their register is short
• 30% of those who have worked 40+ hours in a week report they have not always received pay of time-and-a-half for overtime hours.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, a Democrat, recently launched an investigation into the practices of fast food owners and their parent corporations, the New York Times reported today. Schneiderman’s investigation is looking into claims made evident by the Fast Food Forward survey, including whether employers paid workers less than the minimum wage and failed to pay overtime. Schneiderman has previously brought claims against more than 20 companies for labor violations, according to the Times.

The abuses, however, aren’t limited to New York. Since workers there launched the first round of strikes in November, they have been joined by fast food and retail workers in Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, and, most recently, Milwaukee, where workers held a one-day walkout Wednesday.

While the economy has seen decent job growth in recent months, the jobs being created may not pay very well. A new report has found that about half of the jobs created in the last three years have been low-paying, reports the Huffington Post’s Mark Gongloff:

Nearly all of the 6.2 million jobs created since the job market first started its historically lousy recovery in the spring of 2010 (nearly a full year after the recession ended) have been in the private services sector, according to RBS. And of the roughly 160,000 jobs per month created in that sector, about 80,000 of them have been “low-paying,” according to RBS. “High-paying” and “average-paying” jobs account for about 40,000 jobs each, according to RBS.

Previous research has found that the majority of the jobs added to the economy since the end of the recession pay low wages. Middle-wage and high-wage jobs haven’t seen nearly the same rate of growth, meaning that the economy has traded comfortable jobs for those that merely allow workers to scrape by.

Private sector companies aren’t the only culprit, however. A recent study by Demos found that tax dollars, through government contracting, health care spending, Small Business Administration loans, federal construction grants, and maintenance on buildings leased by the federal government pay two million workers $12 or less per hour, wages too low to support a family. That figure is more than the number of low-wage workers at Walmart and McDonalds combined.

President Obama has recently pushed his proposal to increase the federal minimum wage to $9 from the current $7.25, which hasn’t been raised in nearly five years. But to raise it to the buying power of the minimum wage in 1968, it would need to be $10.55 an hour. Meanwhile, pay at the top of the economic ladder has far outpaced growth at the bottom: CEO pay increased 127 times faster than worker pay over the past three decades.

Workers in at least 100 Walmart stores will confront their managers today over the company’s scheduling system. As Josh Eidelson reports, today’s showdown could rival November’s Black Friday strikes against the store:

If organizers’ estimates hold, Wednesday’s coordinated worker delegations will represent the largest mobilization of OUR Walmart members since last November’s Black Friday strikes, in which organizers say some 400 workers walked off the job. In some stores, workers will go together to talk to management before or after their shifts; in others, workers will do so during the work day.

Confrontations over scheduling aren’t unique to Walmart: Workers at the high-end clothing retailer Juicy Couture in New York have begun a campaign to protest what they claim is the practice of making full-time employees part-time to avoid paying benefits. And the number of workers who are in part-time positions who want to get full-time work has been rising lately, clocking in at 7.6 million in March, up by three million since the beginning of the recession. The trend has been occurring for two decades now in the retail sector, however, as many retailers have gone from a majority of full-time staff to a majority of part-time workers. Thirteen percent of retail workers are working part time involuntarily.

Part-time work not only often means fewer hours, making it harder to earn enough to get by, but also tends to come with lower pay and few benefits. While full-time wages for hourly workers can reach over $14 an hour, the high end of wages for part-time workers is just over $9. Only about a quarter of part-time employees get health care benefits, compared to 86 percent of full-time workers. Many employers are also using “just-in-time” scheduling that seeks to match workers with demand, but it can mean unpredictable schedules, creating challenges for employees who need to schedule things like child care.

Beyond making life difficult for workers, these practices can also harm the companies themselves. Walmart has lately been criticized for struggling to stock its shelves because it doesn’t have enough employees working enough hours to get enough merchandise on the floor. It’s also led to long lines and customer dissatisfaction. That may mean losing business to other chains that have higher staffing levels. The company ranked last among department and discount stores in the American Customer Satisfaction Index in February.

Other discount retailers have taken a different approach. Costco, for example, offers a starting hourly wage of $11.50, predictable schedules, and good benefits. That has led to higher productivity and a lower rate of turnover. While it has a lower profit margin than Walmart, it gets much more revenue and profit per employee and generates a higher return for its investors.

Michigan workers were dealt a staggering blow last year when Gov. Rick Snyder (R) signed a so-called “right to work” law to gut unions. Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation on Friday that may help combat the negative effects of that law by raising the minimum wage from $7.40 to $10 an hour. Minimum wage in the state has not been raised since 2008.

The bill would gradually increase wages over the next 3 years, and could help mitigate income inequality, which is on the rise in Michigan:

Supporters of the bill, like Democratic Reps. John Switalksi and Rashida Tlaib, said that raising the minimum wage would offer people “a chance at a better life” while narrowing the inequality gap. Dave Woodward, who launched an online petition at www.raisemichigan.com, said that more than 70 percent of people living in Michigan are in favor of increasing the minimum wage.

Woodward said: “Right now, minimum wage workers and middle class families are doing their taxes and they’re finding their taxes going up because of policies by Gov. Snyder and Republicans in Lansing…It’s long overdue that Michigan families get a raise and raising the minimum wage helps do that.”

Currently, a minimum wage worker needs to work 80 hours a week in order to afford the rent for a two-bedroom apartment. Republicans claim the increase would hurt businesses’ ability to hire more people. Nevertheless, more than 70 percent of Michigan residents are in favor of increasing the minimum wage.

As Michigan’s poverty level rises, tax hikes on low-income workers coupled with increased cost of living have hit residents hard. Meanwhile, the state’s union-busting law crippled workers’ wage negotiating power and will likely cost all Michigan workers, union or otherwise, $1,500 a year in wages. Unfortunately, the national trend is to suppress wages, not raise them; since 2011, 105 wage suppression bills have been introduced in 31 states.

Hundreds of fast food workers in New York City began walking off the job this morning to demand a living wage and the ability to form a union without intimidation or retaliation from their employers, the second such action workers have taken since November. Fast food workers went on strike on November 29 to demand a $15 wage and the right to form a union, and organizers expect this strike to be even larger. By 7:30 a.m., workers had already picketed multiple restaurants, including a Burger King location that was still closed despite its 6 a.m. opening time, according to organizers.

The strike was organized by Fast Food Forward, the group that also led the November walkout, and inspired by Memphis sanitation workers who went on strike with Dr. Martin Luther King in 1968. The strike is occurring on the 45th anniversary of King’s assassination during those organizing efforts.

In a letter to workers and supporters, the group said many of its members are living on food stamps or in homeless shelters even as profits continue to rise for low-wage fast food employers. “We’re on strike today because we can’t survive on $7.25. Higher wages will help us raise our families with dignity but will also help lift our entire economy. More money in the hands of workers means more money spent in local shops and a boost for our community,” the letter says.

Profits at low-wage food employers have indeed grown rapidly since the recession, as this chart from the National Employment Law Project shows:

Low-wage industries like fast food are the fastest growing sectors in America, outpacing the economy since the Great Recession. While such jobs accounted for just 21 percent of losses during the recession, they have made up 58 percent of jobs added during the recovery, and one in four American workers is expected to hold a low-wage job a decade from now. At the same time, the minimum wage is falling farther behind the cost of living — had it risen with inflation and productivity gains since the 1960s, the minimum wage would be north of $20 an hour.

Organizers of the strike expect between 400 and 500 workers to walk of the job today as they continue to fight for a union and a living wage. The strike will be concentrated in Harlem, where organizers will lead a march this afternoon.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that, according to Labor Department data, roughly 284,000 American college graduates are working minimum wage jobs. While that is down from its 2010 peak, it is still double the number who worked such jobs before the Great Recession.

As the Journal notes, the share of college educated workers in minimum wage jobs hasn’t changed — it is still roughly 8 percent. What has increased, however, is the number of college graduates working for hourly pay:

Instead, they’re ending up slightly higher up the ladder, in jobs that pay an hourly wage. In 2002, college graduates made up 13% of all hourly workers. That figure has risen every year since, hitting 17.8% in 2012. There are now 13.4 million college graduates working for hourly pay, up 19% since the start of the recession. While the Labor Department doesn’t provide data on how much those jobs pay, it’s a safe bet most of them aren’t the kind of jobs students were hoping for when they graduated.

These increases, both in minimum and hourly wage jobs, are likely due to explosive growth in low-wage sectors since the end of the recession. Low-wage occupations accounted for a fifth of job losses during the recession, but they made up 58 percent of the jobs added since the recession’s end, according to a recent study from the National Employment Law Project. Meanwhile, mid-wage occupations, which would generally cater to recent college graduates, made up 60 percent of recession losses and just 22 percent of jobs added since it ended.

Low-wage sectors, in fact, have grown faster than the overall American economy since the end of the recession, according to NELP. The expectation is that growth in mid- and high-wage occupations will offset that boom as the economy strengthens, but studies have offered a different picture. The Economic Policy Institute, in fact, projects that one-in-four workers will be in low-wage jobs in 2020, roughly the same number that worked in those jobs immediately after the recession in 2010.

So while low-wage jobs came back faster than they left, mid- and high-wage jobs could continue to return at a far slower pace. That will leave college graduates less able to contribute to the economy (especially as they deal with huge student debt burdens). But since they still fare better than less educated workers, it also means many workers will be pushed down the wage ladder or out of the labor market altogether.

Howard Schultz, the Chief Executive Officer of Starbucks, has added another pro-worker notch to his belt: support for increasing the minimum wage.

Schultz already has a relatively good reputation on workers’ issues; his company offers health care to all of its employees, and doesn’t mind spending more on health care than on coffee. Starbucks also launched, in 2011, a a pro-jobs effort where patrons could donate to a loan program that helps small businesses keep jobs and hire.

Now, he is tentatively putting his weight behind the Democratic push to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 to something more like $9 or $10 an hour. In an interview with CNBC, Schultz said, “I am a supporter of the minimum wage going up“:

Howard Schultz, the head of the global coffee giant, told CNBC Wednesday that “the minimum wage issue is a double-edged sword,” because while boosting it would mean higher wages for workers, it may also discourage businesses from hiring more people.

“On balance, I am a supporter of the minimum wage going up,” he said. “We’ve got to be very careful what we wish for because some employers — and there could be a lot of them — will be scared away from hiring new people or creating incremental hours for part-time people as a result of that wage going up.”

Last week, House Republicans voted down a proposal pushed by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) that would have raised the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. The Senate has made no motions to improve the wage. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), however, has pointed out that the minimum wage would be $22 an hour if it had been adjusted for inflation and worker productivity. Indexed to inflation alone, it would stand at $10.40.

Schultz is joined in his support for an increased minimum wage by Costco CEO Craig Jelinek. Jelinek, however, has said he would actually like to see it rise higher than $10 an hour.

House Republicans on Friday unanimously voted down a bill that would have raised the minimum wage. Six Democrats joined them in defeating the effort.

The vote came after a surprise move by Democrats, who tacked onto a jobs training program bill an amendment that would have brought the national $7.25 minimum wage to $10.10 by 2015. But Republicans managed to defeat the effort while approving the bill overall.

A few weeks back, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) came out in support raising minimum wage, responding President Obama’s State of the Union call for a wage increase. Pelosi’s effort, and the effort proposed Friday, would actually bring the minimum wage up higher than Obama’s suggestion of $9.

If the minimum wage were brought up to $10.10 an hour, it would not be a revolutionary hike; rather, it would be indexed to inflation and consistent with historical borrowing power. Had the minimum wage been indexed to inflation in 1968, it would be $10.40.