NY: Dems’ ‘Minimum’ Job-Killer
7th May 2012
Assembly Democrats want to raise New York’s minimum wage from $7.25 to $8.50 an hour. Gov. Cuomo’s left the door open to this job-killer, so it could yet become law this year. Yet this mandate would make New York’s business climate even more uncompetitive — while harming the people it’s supposed to help.
Few if any of the folks pushing the minimum-wage hike have ever run a private-sector business. They have zero understanding of how hard it already is for job-creators in New York to run their businesses.
Indeed, I think it’s safe to say that few if any of the folks pushing the minimum-wage hike have ever held a minimum-wage job.
It doesn’t take a great deal of intelligence to grasp the simple fact that if you raise the price of something, you lessen demand for it. Yet politicians of all stripes seem to think that demand for low or unskilled labor is so inelastic that you can play with the price all you want without affecting how many people get employed. That this sort of stupidity makes its way into law is one of the chief indicators that our political system is badly broken.