So now the big issue in Harrisburg is raising the minimum wage. One has to wonder why it’s so important NOW?? Could it be an attempt to assuage some guilty feelings? Hard to say and who am I to speculate. I’ll let you decide.
What I do know is that raising the minimum wage has been positioned by proponents as the “magic pill” for improving the lives of Pennsylvania’s working families and low-income residents. What they fail to mention is the negative side effect of mandatory wage hikes – that raising the minimum wage hurts the very people it purports to help.
Mandated wages are job killers. Unless business productivity increases sufficiently to generate enough revenue to pay what is essentially a small employer tax, affected businesses will have to spread the same amount of money over fewer workers. The least skilled workers in the labor pool – those that most need to get and keep their feet on the first rung of the job ladder – will be the first to lose their jobs. Because higher mandated wages cause shifts in the profile of those who get hired, as employers favor more highly skilled workers, these low-skilled workers will also be denied opportunities to enter the work force.
Businesses unable to absorb the cost of a mandated wage hike may also be prevented from hiring additional workers, or be forced to decrease the number of hours worked by current employees or reduce health-care benefits (if they are able to offer them to employees in the first place given years of double-digit premium increases.)
Finally, higher minimum wages have a negative ripple effect on other businesses by artificially increasing wages across the board.
Pennsylvania does in fact have an opportunity to help better the lives of working families. Business growth is the real cure. Reducing taxes, providing affordable health care, and improving our legal environment – all ideas being advanced by the PA Chamber’s more than 9,000 members in its Agenda for Jobs – is the source of economic opportunity and advancement. This would do far more good than hiking the minimum wage, which would benefit some to the detriment of those most in need of employment.
If Pennsylvania truly wants to help people, it must reduce the barriers and mandates placed on employers that inhibit job creation. There is no magic pill, no magic carpet ride to creating jobs. It will take some hard work.
Posted by: Nike Air Max 97 | September 15, 2010 at 11:52 PM