A Chicago Tribune poll reports that 84% of Chicago voters support Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s supposed proposal* to increase the minimum wage in Chicago to $13.00 per hour, from the current $8.25. While the avowed purpose of the proposal is to help people with low-paying jobs, there is actually nothing that could hurt people in low-paying jobs, and people who can’t get jobs, more than an increase of this size in the minimum wage.
It may sound harsh, but some workers aren’t worth $13.00 an hour to their employers. Workers aren’t going to be paid more than they effectively earn for their employers. If they don’t earn $13.00, plus taxes, benefits, etc., and plus overhead and some profit, they aren’t going to be paid that. If the law requires it, then they won’t have a job. Employers will shut down, more their operations elsewhere, buy more machines, and/or just hire really good employees to whom they can justify paying that much money. Other workers will be out of luck – and out of work.
According to the Tribune article, “[l]abor economists have said that modest increases to the minimum wage do not have a significant impact on employment.” Note the two caveats here: “modest increases” and “significant impact”. A small increase won’t have a big impact. It will have an impact; it just won’t be that noticeable – except to the people who actually do lose their jobs and the companies who can’t afford to pay them.
In any case, Mayor Emanuel’s proposal isn’t modest. It’s huge, and it will have a big impact – except not in the way Mayor Emanuel and those who support this idea think. It’s not going to help that many people, and it will hurt many more. If this is enacted, people will lose jobs (and lots of people who don’t have jobs now, will have a lower chance of getting a job in the future) and companies will move or go out of business. The only “good” thing that would come of it, will be the feeling that the supporters of this proposal have inside themselves.
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* I say “supposed” proposal because, while Mayor Emanuel talks about the idea in campaign appearances, he is not pushing the Chicago City Council to vote on the proposal before the election in November, when there will be an advisory referendum on the ballot in Illinois to raise the statewide minimum wage to $10.00 an hour. Also, Mayor Emanuel won’t say what he would do with his $13.00 per hour proposal if the state raises its minimum wage to $10.00 an hour. In other words, this is not a real proposal. It’s just politics ahead of the mayoral election in Chicago next year.
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