NJ: Vote "NO" on Public Question 2 and keep class warfare out of the state constitution

This year's "feel good" public question calls for enshrining a minimum wage of $8.25 per hour in the New Jersey State Constitution.

Don't fall for it.

You won't be "helping the working poor." You'll be pricing them out of the job market.

Economist Thomas Sowell explains why:

"It would be comforting to believe that the government can simply decree higher pay for low-wage workers, without having to worry about unfortunate repercussions, but the preponderance of evidence indicates that labor is not exempt from the basic economic principle that artificially high prices cause surpluses. In the case of the surplus of human beings, that can be a special tragedy when they are already from low-income, unskilled or minority backgrounds and urgently need to get on the job ladder, if they are ever to move up the ladder by acquiring experience and skills."

New Jersey already has an underclass — undocumented immigrants — working in the shadows for cash under the table. A constitutionally-mandated minimum wage won't apply to them. And setting the minimum wage artificially high will send more jobs into that limbo, where they'll still get done, just not by the folks our crusading intelligensia are pretending to help.

What good is mandating a minimum wage of $8.25 per hour if all the jobs at that pay grade require skills the entry-level job seeker doesn't have?

And, not to put too fine a point on it, but raising the minimum wage disproportionally and adversely affects low-income minority groups, especially low-skilled black teenagers.

The effects of the minimum wage have been concentrated on the groups that the do-gooders would most like to help. The people who have been hurt most by the minimum wage laws are the blacks. I have often said that the most anti-black law on the books of this land is the minimum wage law."
— Milton Friedman

The current jobless rate for black teens is 37.8%. For black male teens it's 43.3%. Before you vote "yes" on Question 2 ask yourself this — will reducing the available number of entry-level jobs help change those statistics for the better?

No. It won't. Not in a million years.

If someone is eking out a living in an entry-level job the solution to her problem isn't a mandated increase in her salary with no commensurate improvement in her skill set. Heck, if that idea worked we could just set the minimum wage at $100 per hour and everyone would live happily ever after.

But if she takes it upon herself to improve her skills, either via education or on-the-job training, then employers would seek her out, and bid up the price of her labor. In effect each of us has the power to set our own minimum wage, determined solely by how hard we are willing to work.

Ergo, vote "NO" on Public Question number 2.

Posted at 18:30 by Chris Wysocki   [/nj_politics]   Comments | Perm Link |
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