Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Senior Policy Analyst

Anyone who lives here can tell you that D.C. is a pricey place. In fact, D.C. was just ranked the nation's sixth most expensive city — the cost of living here is almost 45 percent higher than the national average and housing is an astounding 2.5 times higher. 

These sky high costs make it incredibly difficult to get by for D.C.'s low-wage workers. Boosting the wages of these workers would be a win-win for the District, increasing economic security for these families while also injecting money into the local economy. A bill currently under consideration by the D.C. Council, The Large Retailer Accountability Act of 2013, would do just this for the District's retail workers employed by some of the largest companies in the country, raising these workers' earnings to a living wage of $12.50 per hour. 

This bill would make a big difference to the city's thousands of retail workers, who live on wages that barely allow them to make ends meet. According to the DC Fiscal Policy Institute (DCFPI), "retail workers in the city are three times as likely as others to live in poverty."

Here we go again. After a three month hiatus, the debt ceiling has gone back into effect and the federal government officially hit the limit last Sunday. This means the Treasury has begun its extraordinary measures to keep us from defaulting. These measures will extend the time until we would actually default until sometime after the summer — but the debt limit brinksmanship still has consequences. In fact, the Government Accountability Office estimates [PDF] last time we were in this situation "delays in raising the debt limit in 2011 led to an increase in Treasury's borrowing costs of about $1.3 billion in fiscal year 2011." 

But what does $1.3 billion really mean? How about this: $1.3 billion is the annual base budget for the Department of Defense's Child Care and Youth Programs. This money goes to child care providers, as well as child and youth development programs. Next year it is estimated to serve more than 200,000 children of military families. 

This comes on the heels of another egregious money waster — the 37th vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. "Obamacare") which passed the House last week.