Blaming businesses for cheaping out, N.J. legislators introduce $15 minimum wage bill

By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog

Despite overwhelming evidence that New Jersey’s recent minimum wage hike – pegging it to the cost of living index – was a terrible idea, Save Jerseyans, two leading legislative Democrats want to go further.

A lot further.

On Wednesday, Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto and Deputy Speaker John Wisniewski announced their plans to introduce a $15 per hour minimum wage bill. New Jersey’s current minimum wage is $8.38.

prietoI’d hope almost everyone, including many Democrats, would find the Wiz’s logic insulting.

“When businesses fail to pay a living wage, government is forced to fill the gap,” explained Wisniewski. “Essentially, taxpayers are subsidizing these low-paying jobs and, in the process, suppressing wages for everyone else in the workforce. It’s not fair for workers or for the taxpayers who end up paying the bill. The American economy works best with a healthy middle class that has money in their pocket to spend.”

So it’s your fault New Jersey’s economy sucks, small business owners! Not the pro-$15 per hour Dems who’ve taxes us to death (and failed to explain how they’re going to force businesses to stay here and pay it, or not lay off workers or cut hours to afford the proposed hike).

The release also crows about how “90 percent of beneficiaries of an increase in the minimum wage are over twenty years old,” failing to disclose that the vast majority of these workers are in entry level positions, keeping the positions for short periods of time before moving up OR using the position as a secondary household income.

I can’t…

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Matt Rooney
About Matt Rooney 8390 Articles
MATT ROONEY is SaveJersey.com's founder and editor-in-chief, a practicing New Jersey attorney, and the host of 'The Matt Rooney Show' on 1210 WPHT every Sunday evening from 7-10PM EST.

12 Comments

  1. When the minimum wage is increased above the marginal revenue product, it becomes unprofitable for businesses to hire the least productive workers and unemployment increases.

    The cost of goods will rise making the increase in the minimum moot.

    Raising the minimum wage is an exercise in futility.No matter how high the increase, nor how high the wage . . . in the end there will always be a minimum scale.

  2. They are public payroll employees who don’t have any comprehension of the effects on businesses employer payroll tax share, employee comp, and other related business cost with such an increase. If the company is paying minimum wage now it would all be possibly double. In addition to the increase in pay. The problem with most politicians is they do not own a business.

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