On Saturday (Sept. 10) West Broadway Avenue was closed to traffic for the celebratory festival, Open Streets \u2026 Monday (Sept. 12) a section closed to traffic for a different reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Protesters, including striking Alina nurses, took to the streets of West Broadway near Interstate 94 to rally and march in a show of unity and a renewed demand that Minneapolis adopt a $15 per hour living wage ordinance. This after the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that the question that was set to appear on the Nov. 8 ballot did not conform to state law. Despite the court\u2019s ruling, protesters are keeping the pressure on, hoping the city will enact a $15 per hour standard for those doing business within Minneapolis city limits. Organizers said Monday\u2019s march and rally was a signal to the Minneapolis City Council and Mayor Betsy Hodges that they, nor the issue, would go away quietly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not going to back down until Minneapolis approves a $15 per hour ordinance,\u201d said Michael McDowell, one of the protest organizers. \u201cThey want us to wait, but the rent won\u2019t wait. We need this now because we can\u2019t wait. We can\u2019t wait anymore. You\u2019ve got CEOs making $9,000 an hour and us workers are out here making crumbs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Alexis Collins, a worker at a Burger King in Fridley, she said her take-home pay of $237.50 per week is keeping her from even getting a place of her own to rent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI can\u2019t get approved for an apartment and the government says I make too much for food stamps and I\u2019m about to have my first child,\u201d said Collins, 19. \u201cI\u2019ve been working at Burger King since I was 14 and this is all I get. It\u2019s hard. It\u2019s just not right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Collins said she does not qualify for public assistance, Rosheeda Credit said raising her salary from $11 per hour as a personal care attendant (PCA) to $15 per hour would get her off of public assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor us to work all day, every day just to pay rent; it\u2019s wrong,\u201d said Credit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Charles Thornton agrees that it is not right. Thornton, who works at the Wendy\u2019s at 421 W. Broadway where protesters gathered, said not only are his wages keeping him mired in poverty, he is being denied benefits as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI make $9.75 (per hour) and on top of that they keep me under 40 hours a week so they don\u2019t have to offer me benefits,\u201d said Thornton, who said he averages 36 hours per week. \u201cI\u2019m a faithful employee. I\u2019m here every day. I\u2019ve been here for seven years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Rev. Paul Slack, president of ISAIAH, a faith-based coalition of more than 100 member congregations, said low wage workers are caught in a vicious cycle of poverty and debt; a cycle he likened to modern-day slavery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen workers are paid a poverty wage they can\u2019t have an emergency, so when they do have emergencies like medical bills, a car in need of repair, they end up at places that are predatory lenders charging an average of 300 percent interest, getting further in debt, further behind and unable to even afford the basics,\u201d said Slack. \u201cWe need a living wage. We need $15 now so that workers and families don\u2019t end up in a cycle of debt; this modern-day slavery.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Saturday (Sept. 10) West Broadway Avenue was closed to traffic for the celebratory festival, Open Streets \u2026 Monday (Sept. 12) a section closed to traffic for a different reason. Protesters, including striking Alina nurses, took to the streets of West Broadway near Interstate 94 to rally and march in a show of unity and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2820,38,2819],"class_list":["post-4550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-mayor-betsy-hodges","tag-minneapolis","tag-minnesota-supreme-court","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Insight-News-Website-Images-8-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4552,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4550\/revisions\/4552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}