Richard S. Toikka, a lawyer and economist, is principal with Farkas and Toikka, a law firm in Washington, D.C. He is co-author of a study released by the Employment Policies Institute in Washington, D.C., in May 2005, which concluded that the impact of increased income gained through a living-wage ordinance was offset by the loss of other government assistance. […]

The federal Violence Against Women Act of 2005 was first signed into law in January 2006.

John Doyle is managing director of the Employment Policies Institute, a nonprofit research group which has funding from the food and beverage industry, and which contends that raising the minimum wage could lead to a loss of jobs. When wages go up, the institute argues, employers respond by hiring fewer people.

The National Restaurant Association opposed the minimum-wage increases. The association contended that relatively few minimum-wage workers are trying to support families and that such legislation would be too expensive for restaurants.

Harry J. Holzer is a professor of public policy at Georgetown University, senior fellow at the Urban Institute and nonresident senior fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. He wrote the December 2008 Brookings report “Living Wage Laws: How Much Do (Can) They Matter?”

Jared Bernstein is Vice President Joe Biden’s chief economist and economic policy adviser. Before taking that post, Bernstein was director of the Living Standards Program at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank. He is the author of All Together Now: Common Sense for a Fair Economy.

The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund and Leadership Institute works to elect LGBT leaders to public office in order to change America’s politics for the support of “true equality” for all. Aisha C. Moody-Mills is the president and CEO.

National Center for Transgender Equality is a social justice organization dedicated to the advancement of equality of transgender people through advocacy and empowerment. Contact executive director Mara Keisling.

Jake Horowitz is a project manager of the Pew Center on the States and a public safety expert. He has a background in counseling juvenile offenders and served as a counselor in an alternative-to-incarceration program for young offenders.