The following opinion piece by State Representative Marc Lombardo (R-Billerica) appeared in the March 27th edition of the Boston Globe’s Globe North section:
Raising the minimum wage
for fast food and big box store employees to $15 an hour would be devastating
to the Massachusetts economy. This proposal fails to understand the basic
principles of a supply and demand economy and as a result, it would have
painful ramifications on the cost of goods and availability of jobs in our
state.
The irony of the
proposal is it would hurt the very people it attempts to help. Business owners
would see significant cost increases to operate and would likely respond by
cutting jobs or raising prices. Either response hurts minimum wage earners as
they will find themselves out of a job or not able to afford a $12 Big Mac.
Further, minimum wage
earners who work outside of the $15 an hour minimum wage industries would be
disadvantaged as they would experience higher costs for goods without the
benefit of the extra wages being paid to minimum wage workers.
Seattle in 2014 approved
a phased-in hike in the hourly minimum wage to $15 with an initial increase to
$11 in April 2015. A recent American Enterprise Institute blog post by Mark J. Perry
noted the city started “ . . . suffering significant job losses, which then
contributed to a noticeable spike in the number of the city’s unemployed
workers and a sharp jump in the city’s jobless rate between April and
December.”
In addition, the impact
on youth jobs will be devastating. Statistics show that the percentage of teens
with jobs is sharply down from past decades. Often the first jobs we held as
youths shaped our work ethic, taught us life skills, and showed us the value of
a dollar. Youth job availability will certainly be damaged under this minimum
wage proposal because of the high cost of inexperienced labor.
This proposal falls
firmly under the “Do as I say, not as I do” category. State senator Daniel Wolf
is a Hyannis Democrat who is also the CEO of Cape Air. The State House News
Service reported that Wolf is “. . . both a supporter of the higher minimum
wage and an airline CEO who can’t currently afford to pay that wage to all
employees.” Doesn’t this statement speak volumes about the practicality of this
bill?
