The News Service of Florida
With Attorney General Office Ashley Moody’s office citing a new law, the Florida Supreme Court has given the go-ahead to more analysis about the financial impacts of a proposed constitutional amendment that would raise the state’s minimum wage.
The Supreme Court on Thursday issued an order that will allow state economists, who meet as the Financial Impact Estimating Conference, to produce an analysis about the impacts of the proposed constitutional amendment on the state and local economy and the state budget.
Under state law at the time, economists in April produced what is known as a “financial impact statement” about the amendment’s potential effects on state and local government revenues and costs. But the Legislature this spring passed a law that also directs analysis of impacts of proposed constitutional amendments on the state and local economy and the state budget.
As a result, Moody’s office asked the Supreme Court last month whether the new requirement applies to the minimum-wage proposal. The proposal, if approved by voters in 2020, would gradually raise the minimum wage until it reaches $15 an hour on Sept. 30, 2026.
Backers of the measure need to clear two thresholds to reach the ballot, including getting approval from the Supreme Court of the proposed ballot wording. Also, they need to submit at least 766,200 valid petition signatures to the state Division of Elections. As of Friday morning, they had submitted 418,860 signatures, state numbers show.
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No need for any crystal ball to know what happens when you artificially force a minimum wage rate hike on the free market. You already have huge proving grounds in two major American cities which decided to mandate the minimum wage at $15.00 an hour. A few sentences from a story on FOX today:
“More than six months after the $15 minimum wage went into effect in New York City, business leaders and owners say the increased labor costs have forced them to cut staff, eliminate work shifts and raise prices.”
“Thomas Grech, president of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, said he has seen an uptick in small-business closures during the past six to nine months, and he attributed it to the minimum-wage legislation.
“They’re cutting their staff. They’re cutting their hours. They’re shutting down,” he said. “It’s not just the rent.”
link: https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-york-city-businesses-struggle-to-keep-up-after-minimum-wage-increase
The same happened in Seattle, WA after they raised the minimum wage to $15.00 an hour. From the Washington Post, hardly a conservative cheerleader:
“Jul 29, 2019 · When Seattle officials voted three years ago to incrementally boost the city’s minimum wage up to $15 an hour, they’d hoped to improve the lives of low-income workers. Yet according to a major new study that could force economists to reassess past research on the issue, the hike has had the opposite effect.”
link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/26/new-study-casts-doubt-on-whether-a-15-minimum-wage-really-helps-workers/?noredirect=on
So – any guesses about what will happen to Florida businesses if we decide to ignore these two results of $15.00 per hour wage hikes?
Here is the ONLY Analysis you need: Minimum Wage Jobs are NOT meant to be able to raise a Family on and NEVER should be. If you want to make MORE than Minimum Wage, prove your Worth and move up the Ladder to better paying Jobs. If a Company HAS to pay the lowest unexperienced Employee more than $10 an Hour, THAT Employee will be GONE and a more experienced person will be hired.
THATS all you need to know.
It is not any government’s place to set the price of labor. An employer can only afford to pay an employee something less than the value of what the employee produces. An employer cannot pay $15/hr to someone generating $5/hr worth of production.
Minimum wage will never be $15/hr, or $10.10, or whatever it is claimed to be now. Minimum wage will always be zero. If you can’t generate more value to your employer than what your employer is willing to pay, you’ll always be unemployed. Arbitrarily setting the minimum wage at $15/hr is going to guarantee that bag boys, cashiers, window washers, people doing lot pick-up will be laid off in droves. Maybe those people wanted those jobs, but now the government has forced them into unemployment.
Even in govt-run, Keynesian Florida State we were taught that when the minimum wage is raised, some people are going to be laid off. What kind of person would mandate a complete stranger lose his or her job?
This is another example of governments doing something to win votes that actually harms the very people they claim to help.
25 years ago I paid my way through college, rent, car, tuition, insurance, etc. I would not have been able to do that making the minimum wage of 25 years ago nor the minimum wage of 2019.
Why does anyone in college or high school need to make 15.00/hr? Minimum wage is not a living wage it never was meant to be it’s a starting wage. You work hard come to work on time take more responsibility and then you make more money. Then you get a promotion or new job because of the work you’ve done and experience you’ve gained.
Why does Florida waste time and resources trying to place “amendments” in the state constitution that should more appropriately be debated and considered only as state laws? Laws (especially those dealing with issues that may become irrelevant or antiquated in the future) can be changed-repealed by future administrations or Florida voters far easier than Constitutional amendments – and the FL Constitution wouldn’t have to be as thick as ten phonebooks with every little “amendment” over the decades.
With very few exceptions, Constitutions should outline basic irrevocable freedoms, foundations, principles, and philosophies. They aren’t intended to be record books of every political issue that comes up in any given year.