Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Minimum wage - $10.03/hour?

Don't miss today's article in the Northwest Herald (http://www.nwherald.com/) about Illinois Sen. Kimberly Lightford's (D-Westchester) bill to boost minimum wage to $10.03/hour.

I'll bet she never owned a small business. Did she ever work for a living, before being elected to the Senate? According to her Senate profile, she has only worked in the public sector. Maybe a requirement for public office should be experience owning a small business!

You probably won't find a businessowner in Illinois who wouldn't like to pay $10.03/hour as a minimum wage, even to waitresses (tip income considered), and to 16- and 18-year-old employees. They only need one thing to be able to do so - enough profitable business!

I don't know John Pletz, but I've certainly heard of ServiceMaster in Crystal Lake. Would he like to pay $10.03/hour to an inexperienced new employee with no knowledge of the business? I suspect he would. The problem is getting enough business in the door to be able to afford it.

What if higher minimum wage forces his own customers to cut back? Then they stop hiring ServiceMaster to come in and clean their offices and homes. Why would those customers cut back? Because they are forced to hire someone with no experience for $10.03/hour! If ServiceMaster loses customers, then it will have to lay off employees.

How many jobs will be lost, if minimum wage goes to $10.03/hour? How many businesses will close?

10 comments:

dave said...

I ask you again, since you continue to refuse to answer my question.

You ran as the Green Party candidate for Sheriff, yet your posts continue to make it very clear that you do not align, at all, with the Green Party platform. Frankly, you are often to the right of mainstream Republicans. So how do you justify your party choice for your sheriff run, other than using an established party in order to get more recognition?

By the way - there is little/no valid research showing that minimum wage increases cost jobs.

Gus said...

dave, thanks for writing. What you are saying is that you don't know of valid research that shows that minimum wage increases will cost jobs.

How about common sense? Go out and talk to some owners of small business who employ minimum-wage employees.

Regarding your persistent question about my choice of Green Party. The election is past. I addressed that question months ago and said I would not comment further on it. And I won't.

Unknown said...

they are servers, not 'waitresses.' Just another example of your sexism

Debra said...

I start my employess at 10.50 per hour and have for many years. Considering the cost of EVERYTHING one has to make at least that to just put food on the table. Maybe if the rich would be made to pay their share instead of being able to afford lawyers to find those tax breaks and loop holes for them we would not need a reasonable minimum wage. But noooo.... way easier to continue to rape the poor (middle class). Shameful!!

Gus said...

Palmer, thanks.

And I still like the stewardesses, when I fly.

Harvard Blog said...

just further proof why you are neither a journalist, credible or have any business being involved with law enforcement

dave said...

What you are saying is that you don't know of valid research that shows that minimum wage increases will cost jobs.

What I am saying is that I KNOW minimum wage increases don't cost jobs (overall), and the research supports me. Go read Michael Thompson's (from Indiana University) work on this.

How about common sense?

Oh wait... you would rather refer to "common sense" even though research disagrees with you. Got it.

Regarding your persistent question about my choice of Green Party. The election is past. I addressed that question months ago and said I would not comment further on it. And I won't.

No, you didn't ever address the question. And I take it your non-answer means that I am correct, and you just used the party to get ballot access. You have almost no policy/political alignment with the Green Party. Can you at least admit that?

dave said...

Some thoughts from Thompson (http://www.ibrc.indiana.edu/ibr/2008/fall/article1.html):

"Empirical analysis strongly challenges the conventional wisdom that increasing the minimum wage hampers employment. Although these statistical results focus on states in just one U.S. region over a fairly narrow time period, they strongly suggest that we cannot assume that minimum wage increases will have a negative impact on employment change."

Gus said...

Excellent research, Dave.

"Although these statistical results focus on states in just one U.S. region over a fairly narrow time period..."

Don't you have to wonder what "statistical results focusing on the USA as a whole over 3-5 years" might show?

dave said...

No, because there have been numerous other studies showing no overall job losses from minimum wage increases.

And are you going to admit that you have almost no political and policy agreement with the Green Party platform?