Quick question…What was the name of the horse who pulled your wagon to the General Store this week?
A plan to increase Missouri’s minimum wage, Proposition B, is on next Tuesday’s ballot. And, as predictable as buzzards in Hinckley, Ohio, some claim that giving the lowest-paid workers more money will destroy jobs and ‘hurt the very people it’s supposed to help.’
That’s bovine by-product.
- Taxpayers subsidize low-wage jobs. Raising wages decreases that taxpayer subsidy.
For example, about 600,000 Missouri kids depend on MO HealthNet (a.k.a. Medicaid) for their health coverage. That’s one Missouri citizen in 10. Most of those kids get care thanks to the Children’s Health Insurance Program which, almost always, is for kids who have working parents where their employer doesn’t offer family insurance. CHIPs requires a premium from parents when their income dribbles above the ‘reduced price’ school meal level. [ https://dss.mo.gov/fsd/pdf/mhk_mhf_ta_income_guidelines.pdf ] So, if the parents get a raise they pay more of the cost of their children’s healthcare, thereby reducing what other taxpayers contribute for that care.
- In many areas of Missouri the effective local minimum wage is already trending much higher than where Missouri may go.
The Burger King near my home in Oakville used to advertise that they pay $9.00 an hour. No more. The lighted sign out front now says $10.00 per hour. Across the St. Louis metro area many employers offer $10.00 or $12.00 an hour and still can’t attract enough workers. (I bet by 2023 the Oakville Burger King will pay way more than $12.00 an hour.)
Yes, in many corners of the state even employers with hundreds of workers often start people near the minimum. Again, if private, for-profit employers need subsidizing are they worth protecting?
- When have wages ever stopped the adoption of new technology?
Tally the robot roams the aisles of several Schnucks locations, using its scanners to inventory and order product. [ St. Louis Business Journal 11/2 – 8/2018] Yes, Tally does a job which humans used to do. Just like UPC scanners replaced the need for human checkers to know the prices of every item in the supermarket, or, for store employees to stamp a price on each package. Even with a stagnant federal minimum wage and union wages which, alas, haven’t paced inflation, stores have adopted self-check stations and taken scores of other measures to improve efficiency. That trend will continue. That trend can’t be stopped.
Another example: automatic French Fry systems will come to Burger King when they’re reliable – and can drop two extra baskets into the fryer when a bus turns onto the parking lot.
My grandfather delivered ice and coal about University City – from a horse drawn wagon – till right before World War II. That business was doomed, no matter how hard my grandpa – or the horse – worked. (For the record, my grandpa held his ground, having a coal fired boiler at home until the mid-1960’s. Yes, I shoveled coal.)
Proposition B will raise Missouri’s minimum wage back to the purchasing power it had in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. It is not radical, it will not kill jobs. It will help working people pay their bills.
Glenn Koenen, WCD Member