Latest news with #Cryan
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
New bill would remove some protections for temporary workers in New Jersey
The new bill comes less than two years after the law known as the "Temp Workers Bill of Rights" went into effect. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor) The sponsor of 2023 legislation that created new workplace protections for temporary workers blasted a new bill that would remove many of those safeguards. 'I believe in equal pay. I believe in equal benefits for equal work,' Sen. Joe Cryan (D-Union) told the Senate Labor Committee Monday. The new bill, which the committee discussed but did not vote on Monday, comes less than two years after the law known as the 'Temp Workers Bill of Rights'' went into effect. That law requires employers to provide basic information on jobs in workers' native language and guarantees a minimum wage to an estimated 127,000 temporary workers, staffed mostly in warehouses and factories. Sen. Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen), sponsor of the new bill, had voted in support of the earlier law, which passed after a years-long push by labor advocates who said the state's temporary workers were victims of exploitative job conditions and wage theft. Sarlo's bill seeks to make several key changes to the temp worker law. The current law requires staffing agencies to pay temp workers the same pay and benefits given to full-time workers performing the same work. Sarlo's bill would revise that to remove the benefits provision and leaving only equal pay. Under the bill, equal pay would mean the agency is required to pay the equivalent of a client's entry-level pay rate for a worker with minimum qualifications. A provision of the law requiring staffing agencies to disclose pay rates would also change under Sarlo's bill, which would reverse that requirement. The law also applies to New Jersey temp workers who take jobs in other states. Sarlo's bill would ax that provision, saying it is 'causing third-party clients in other states to reduce their use of temporary laborers from New Jersey.' Mike Nolfo, a franchisee for Express Employment Professionals, said his company employs nearly 2,000 temporary workers daily at 300 local businesses. Nolfo supports the new bill, and said it's an opportunity to help mom-and-pop shops that are struggling because of the new law. He agreed that Pennsylvania companies aren't using New Jersey agencies because of state laws. 'We lost virtually all of our clients in East Stroudsburg because of this law, because they just don't want to comply with it,' he said. 'There's a lot of pieces to it. We're not saying the whole thing. Some of it doesn't make sense.' The temp worker law passed out of the Legislature in February 2023 with the minimum number of yes votes a bill needs to pass the Senate, 21. It went into full effect that summer. Staffing agencies and business groups sued over the law, claiming it is unconstitutionally vague and makes New Jersey less competitive. Cryan noted the plaintiffs have lost all their legal challenges. Cryan said supporters of the new bill say it's aimed at cleaning up mistakes in the law, but he called the measure 'far from that.' Opponents of the bill said weakening the protections of temporary workers only hurts vulnerable people who are abused and exploited in the workplace. Nedia Morsy, executive director of immigrant advocacy group Make the Road New Jersey, said it's 'stunning that in a climate of federal attacks on workers, on immigrants, and on the institutions that protect both, that a bill like this would even see the light of day.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump Wants To Replace Income Taxes With Tariffs: 2 Impacts on the Middle Class
No one likes taxes — especially President Donald Trump. If he has his way, income taxes will become a thing of the past, with tariffs making up that revenue. Trump Wants To Eliminate Income Taxes: 5 Ways This Could Impact Your Salary in 2025 Read Next: 'Donald Trump announced the 'External Revenue Service,' and his goal is very simple — to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and let all the outsiders pay,' Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Fox News. While paying less in taxes might be music to your ears, if you're a member of the middle class, the reality might not be so rosy. Here's why tariffs could cause financial strain for middle-class earners. Trump's tariffs are likely to lead to higher prices on many everyday essentials and big-ticket purchases. 'The Trump administration rollout of tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada will create economic inefficiencies, which will raise prices,' said Thomas J. Cryan, tax attorney and author of 'Disrupting Taxes.' 'A 25% tariff on imports will increase the cost of certain products, and will have a significant impact on consumer prices,' he continued. 'Though exporters and middlemen might absorb some of the cost increase due to the tariffs, for the most part, the tariffs' costs are passed on to the consumer.' Cryan believes fruit and vegetable prices will be among the first category to increase. 'The U.S. imports 60% of all fresh fruits consumed and 30% of all fresh vegetables,' he said. 'Therefore, a 20%-25% increase in the price of fruits and vegetables, critical to keeping all families healthy, would be of great impact.' Check Out: Cryan believes that tariffs will lead to fewer available jobs for middle-class workers. 'Tariffs do not gain jobs, but rather create inefficiencies within the economy that destroy jobs and hurt workers,' he said. 'Tariffs that protect certain industries — and jobs — will have the unintended consequences of harming other industries and the consumer via higher prices, which might slow down economic growth and trigger larger layoffs.' Retaliatory tariffs — which have already begun rolling out — will exacerbate the issue, Cryan said. 'Retaliatory tariffs enacted by other countries will further spiral economic suppression and job loss,' he said. 'Jobs will be lost as tariffs shrink trade and throttle-back the economy. A concentrated special interest, such as protecting steel workers, should never prevail over the diffused general interest of all consumers across the country.' Cryan believes that the effect of tariffs will be felt more by the middle class than higher socioeconomic classes. 'Increased costs of daily necessities impacts the middle class and the working class the hardest, in that they have less disposable income,' he said. 'Specifically, it is important to recognize that the costs of tariffs do not impact the rich and the poor alike. Clearly, $1,000 means a lot more to a poor family working hard to cover all their bills than to a rich family with discretionary income. 'Economic studies have shown that the lower your income, the greater the impact of price increases due to tariffs,' Cryan continued. 'Ultimately, tariffs and trade wars are bad for everyone, and surely one can predict that such actions will result in a contraction of the GDP, which will trigger economic struggles and a tightening in the labor market.' Editor's note on political coverage: GOBankingRates is nonpartisan and strives to cover all aspects of the economy objectively and present balanced reports on politically focused finance stories. You can find more coverage of this topic on More From GOBankingRates 5 Types of Vehicles Retirees Should Stay Away From Buying 3 Changes That Could Be Coming to Social Security Now That Congress Is Republican This article originally appeared on Trump Wants To Replace Income Taxes With Tariffs: 2 Impacts on the Middle Class
