DFL politicians in Minnesota often throw around the $6.15 wage figure when in fact most making minimum wage in Minnesota are at $7.25 per hour the same minimum wage as North and South Dakota, Wisconsin and Iowa. Another fact ignored is only 5 percent of all workers in Minnesota make $7.25 or less. They also don’t tell you that almost half of those workers work in jobs that have corresponding tip credit laws in which allows employer to pay lower wage — $4.86 in North Dakota, $2.13 in South Dakota, $4.35 in Iowa and $2.33 in Wisconsin. So you don’t always get the full story, just what a politician tells you.

How about some basic math and economics? Where does this new money to pay the increase come from? The budgets for Joe’s Bakery, Mary’s Bar or Ted & Jen’s Resort doesn’t just magically increase because government passes a law — you, the consumer, pays for it in higher goods and services, costs or the employer eats it. So, for instance, a small resort with 40 part-time staff 20 hours a week at $6.15 has a weekly budget of $4,920.

Politicians raise that arbitrarily to $10 or an increase or 62.6 percent. Where does it come from? That resort owner struggling to get by still has a budget of $4,920 not $8,000. That resort owner, pizza place owner, bar, bakery, farmer and Main Street small business have choices to make. Does the owner cut staff hours, cut staff or raise the costs of goods or services?

The unions and DFL politicians say this is good for Minnesota, good for those employed and good for the poor. Well, if we close two or three more shops on Main Street or the seasonal employer just closes shop, who gives those people jobs? If you lay off half the staff to stay open, how long can they? If you raise labor costs 62 percent, how high do you have to jack the price of a pizza, doughnut, resort cabin to pay for it or before people just stay home? How much to cut staffs hours? How many staff to cut? Should they just close for good? These are real decisions that small business owners will be faced with thanks to politicians making a “feel good” decision in a St. Paul committee room isolated from the effects of their decision in the real world.

It’s called simple math and simple economics — something politicians in St. Paul don’t seem to understand. Political decisions have consequences!

It will cost jobs, it will close small businesses, it will affect the ability to find jobs, and it will destroy opportunity those are facts the DFL ignore. Absolutely no difference with Democrats, Barack Obama and minimum wage on the federal level.

 

David Anderson

Lonsdale