Minimum Wage Hikes Are Dampening Employment Numbers

Proof • June 11, 2009

I’ve long said that raising the minimum wage, since it essentially represents a tax on low wage workers, depresses employment by inflating the price of labor for employers. A reader, who is also an employer, emails this along bearing that out:

Rob,
Love the blog. I run a small convenience/grocery store in [location removed] and just this morning filled out paperwork to give five people working for me a raise in advance of the July 24th deadline for raising the min. wage to $7.25/hour. It galls me to give raises to people not because they deserved them or needed them but because the government said that I, as their employer, have to.
Like most retailers, I calculate my payroll in relation to the amount of sales I do. By July the minimum wage will have gone up $2.00/hour since 2006. My sales have not grown nearly as fast (in fact they’ve been stagnant thanks to the economy), so to pay for these mandatory raises I’ve had to deny other employees raises they earned. I’ve also eliminated one part time position.
So all the good the minimum wage has done at my place of business is one less job, and fewer raises for people who earned them. I hope Congress is happy.

I suspect that there are a lot of employers in the country going through a situation similar to this.

Tags: Asshats, Domestic Issues, North Dakota News, Politics

http://Array Bat One

I can’t wait to see that Sock Puppet DINO says on this one.

Its all because of Bush and the evil conservatives! If the federal government regulated how much money the retailer can take out if “his” business, then hiring more minimum wage employees wouldn’t be a problem. We need a small business czar in Washington to oversee greedy retailers!

That should just about cover it, don’t ya think?
Mark

It’s all about getting votes.
GregB999

I’ve noticed this at the theater I go to. Less employees behind the concession stand (teenagers) and usually only two people to clean out their largest screens when it used to be three. My friend and I know plan on arriving 5-10 minutes earlier than normal if we’re buying any popcorn and pop…
http://ndgoon.blogspot.com/ goon

I can’t wait to see that Sock Puppet DINO says on this one.
Jackass Jimmy

Note the conspicuous absence of one Dino when the facts get rolled out. It’s sad that liberals cannot see even the most basic and simple logic and reasoning in this.

They want to hike the minimum wage to buy votes from their favored groups. But they fail to realize that the pot from which these wages are paid stays the same size regardless of the wage rate. Simple math says that when you increase the divisor, the quotient decreases. For example: 100 divided by 5 is 20, but 100 divided by 10 is 10. If I have a $100 payroll, I can afford 20 employees at $5 each. But if I have to pay my employees $10, then I can only afford 10 employees. I have to lay off 10 employees. There is no Obamagic that will suddenly make my payroll $200 so I can keep everyone at the new wage! It’s amazing that people fall for this stuff!

Now. How exactly does this make ANY sense, especially in the socialist liberal sense, that 10 employees should make more money than the employees that got laid off? It goes against the very grain of the socialist movement! You know… the idea that everyone should be kept equal by force. $5 each over 20 employees sure seems more equal than $10 over 10 employees and nothing for 10 other employees.

Just sayin’. Goonions could learn a little from this, too.
bill-tb

It’s true locally, everywhere. The ranks are thinned. Business ses the minimum wage as a tax, and if you increase taxes you get less of it … and that is entry level employees.

It is a well known fact, you cannot be liberal and rational at the same time.
http://www.valleydeals.com/cgi-bin/board2/YaBB.pl Kevin

A lot of people are not capable of doing $7.25 + mandated benefits worth of work per hour.
http://massbackwards.blogspot.com/ Bruce

I hope Congress is happy.

Why wouldn’t they be happy. Their plan is working. Soon we’ll all be equally destitute. And, isn’t equality what it’s all about?

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Minimum Wage Hikes Are Dampening Employment Numbers

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