The drumbeat has begun, led by the armies of the Service Employees International Union. In marches across the nation — including Hartford — a collection of security guards and janitors, maids and porters is making the case that the minimum wage is too low.
The good news is that this time the target is the federal minimum wage, which has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009. It’s much easier to support a national change than it is a state change. Simply, a federal change raises all boats and doesn’t place a state like Connecticut at an economic disadvantage because its legislature is more easily manipulated by labor.
Certainly the SEIU and others have a point — it isn’t possible to live on $7.25 an hour and some adjustment is needed. One bill circulating in Washington would make the number $9.80 an hour by 2014. That seems aggressive, given the relatively low level of inflation over the past five years.
It seems likely some adjustment will come. But it’s also likely that any federal change won’t satisfy labor, which will be back at the statehouse next session trying to push Connecticut’s minimum wage — now $1 an hour above the federal minimum at $8.25 an hour — even higher.
Artificially boosting wages sets in motion a vicious cycle that fuels Connecticut’s high costs of doing business and in the short-run reduces jobs.
Many small businesses work on small margins. Pushing costs higher stunts their growth and limits their ability to add jobs. There’s a direct correlation between the value added by a job and the pay. It’s a cause and effect labor doesn’t want to acknowledge.
The answer to achieving higher pay lies in developing better skills and better productivity, not in mandated raises.
But as certainly as spring brings rain, business lobbyists will be back at work explaining the obvious to legislators being pressured to add to the state’s minimum wage and secure Connecticut’s ranking as a place where the cost of doing business is high.
Some things just never change.
Choose to be involved
Speaking of disconnects …
Congress ends a hectic month of three-day work weeks Thursday when members head home for what is euphemistically called ‘constituent work.’ It’s really a time for pure partisan politics.
But then what’s happened so far this summer has been tough to distinguish from pure partisan politics.
Amid testimony that the fragile economy would fall off a cliff and the nation’s security would be put at risk if drastic budget measures are allowed to engage, Congress pointed fingers. Faced with evidence millions of middle-class taxpayers would be savaged by unintended consequences of the ‘alternative minimum tax’, Congress yawned. Votes were taken, not to advance any legislation but to establish a record on which to run for re-election.
Back home, congressional candidates of both parties stepped forward with grand plans to solve the nation’s ills, knowing full well their schemes are DOA.
The reality, of course, is that everything in federal government has ground to a halt pending November’s election. The trickle down has an impact at the state capitol in Hartford and in town halls across the state.
There was a time when all politics was local; today, all politics seems national, captive to the whims of a small percentage of undecided voters who poke their heads up every four years and decide the direction of the country based on misleading campaign advertising.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that we can’t solve any problems when we spend most of our effort playing politics. And it shouldn’t surprise us when we get the government that level of attention allows.
There’s got to be a better way. Whether Republican or Democrat, Libertarian or Independent, this is a good time to get involved.
