THE MINIMUM WAGE SCAM By Andrew L Sullivan Some simple facts about minimum wage. 1) The initiative to hike Nebraska’s minimum from $7.25 to $9.00 is a 24 percent increase. While many businesses may not be immediately impacted, other businesses related to agricultural and groceries will have to substantially raise prices to cover the higher costs of their minimum wage employees as they have little costs they can cut. This cost increase will impact everyone including those on fixed income, including seniors and those with disability. The whole initiative is likely to cost Nebraska consumers over 100 million dollars a year once fully implemented. Nebraska’s reputation as having a low cost of living would be destroyed. 2) Many assume the minimum wage hike will only impact minimum wage jobs. Anything which raises an employer’s costs will impact all working for the business. Also, any business working with any other business in the minimum wage market will be impacted. Benefits can be cut back or jobs eliminated by attrition. Often, the least likely job to be cut is the minimum wage job because it is still the lowest paid job on the market. All other jobs will be impacted. Realistically, raising the minimum actually brings everyone closer to the poverty level as costs are spread around. 3) While the initiative is supposed to help the poor, what it really does is pay people to stay at the bottom of the career ladder and stunt their own career development. If the minimum wage goes up, instead of 29,000 workers on minimum wage, Nebraska will have 97,000 workers on minimum which is 10 percent of Nebraska’s labor market. This is what the proponents call “progress”. Realistically, it is recipe for inflated costs on consumer items, and a loss of good jobs. 4) Minimum wage will never be a “living” wage. A 13 year old kid picking apples in an orchard will be paid the minimum wage and does not need a raise. The minimum wage is really a bubble gum wage. If it is raised, it means businesses will have to pay kids more money at the expense of other employees. Realistically, minimum wage often prevents higher paying jobs from coming in to existence and raising the minimum would increase this result. 5) Nebraska state minimum law has a lower threshold than Nebraska law and for Nebraska to raise the minimum unilaterally will send jobs to other states. The Federal minimum wage only applies to companies of sales of $500,000 or more, but Nebraska law applies to companies as little as $110,000. This will put Nebraska companies at a competitive disadvantage. Nebraska agricultural commodities may actually be less competitive on the national and world markets. There has been no studies on this. 6) Businesses who are for and against or silent, and the hidden digital nightmare. Many businesses are making superficial assumptions or determining how raising the minimum may benefit or hurt their business. There is no doubt, raising the minimum will benefit some companies and employees over other companies and employees. What should concern Nebraskans of larger companies involved heavily in the digital data industry. These companies may oppose the attempts to raise the minimum, but to oppose has costs but sending jobs out of Nebraska has zero transactional costs. Many of these businesses are happy to pay $10 or more an hour but if the costs of living goes up and employees seek higher wages, these companies will send jobs out of state without making a sound. There is zero costs for them to do so. It is all digital. 7) If you are getting paid less than $9 an hour or near it, I recommend you speak to your immediate supervisor and find out what happens when the minimum is raised. If you are expecting your pay to go up $1.75 simply because the minimum does, you may be in for a bit of shock to find you will be paid what the next newly hired employee gets, even if you worked there for over a year.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 19:17:31 +0000
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