\u00a0Lever<\/em>, NFIB was correct in the virtual lobbying call to note that minimum wages are falling behind the market rate for entry level jobs. \u201cThe bite of the minimum wage (the proportion of workers who would get a raise) has fallen,\u201d Reich said. \u201cBut in any case, the weight of the credible research evidence clearly shows that minimum wage increases do not reduce employment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n \n
\n \u201cWage Compensation Is Killing Us\u201d<\/h2>\n \n
Both of the Democratic lawmakers who joined the call told the audience that given increased costs of living, the NFIB probably won\u2019t succeed in killing efforts to raise the minimum wage.<\/p>\n
Stirpe, the chair of the small business committee, said he didn\u2019t think the legislative bills would pass but that Hochul\u2019s proposal \u201cprobably has a pretty good chance.\u201d Action on the minimum wage, he said, \u201cis going to be a difficult one to block completely under the circumstances that everybody is living with right now. It\u2019s just, everything is just so much more expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n
His senate colleague, Ryan, a labor ally, took issue with the NFIB\u2019s stance against a minimum wage increase.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to make sure we have a robust small business community,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you know, the city of Buffalo has a child poverty rate every year [of] about 50 percent. Of the people who live in poverty in Buffalo, 60 percent of those families have a full-time wage earner in the household.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later in the call, Ortt, the senate minority leader, said the minimum wage was not intended to be a living wage anyways.<\/p>\n
\u201cA minimum wage job was not intended, more often than not, maybe never, to be a living wage,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s not the point of it. It\u2019s an entry wage, mostly for unskilled labor. . . . A lot of times, someone starts at a minimum wage job. And at some point they graduate to a living wage position.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ryan also noted that the supposed small business lobby was fighting legislation that would mostly affect large national and multinational corporations \u2014 not small businesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cIBM has been in my office telling me they\u2019re a small business,\u201d Ryan lamented, adding: \u201cRemember, in the big bell curve of minimum wage workers, the bulk of them work for national corporations. . . . That\u2019s the bulk of minimum wage workers in New York State. It\u2019s not small shops, it\u2019s not locally-owned pizzerias.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ryan questioned whether small businesses were still paying $15 an hour.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything I hear from small businesses that come to me is they can\u2019t find anybody,\u201d he said, pointing out that an Amazon warehouse just opened in the town of Clay in his district and is paying $20 an hour. \u201cSo I\u2019m just thinking that even to keep in business and find employees, you sort of have to move with the market.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ortt, who is opposing efforts to increase the minimum wage, also made this point. \u201cMost New York companies aren\u2019t paying the minimum wage anyways \u2014 they\u2019re paying more because the market is dictating it, because you can\u2019t find enough people to do the jobs that are already out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the course of the call, Ranslow repeatedly read messages from the Zoom chat from NFIB\u2019s small business members. \u201cFirst a comment from Chuck that I think echoes a lot of what we\u2019re hearing from our members,\u201d Ranslow said. \u201cHe says, \u2018As a small business owner, wage compensation is killing us.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
When Ranslow argued that raising the minimum wage in New York would make it less competitive with other states, Ryan said, \u201cTell me what people in Pennsylvania are doing if they are getting paid $7.25 an hour, or whatever their minimum wage is, how are they living? I can\u2019t figure that out. I don’t know, maybe somebody can tell me how they\u2019re able to live? I get a lot of people that come into my office telling me that even at $14 or $15 an hour, they’re always less than one paycheck away from being homeless.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ranslow read another message from the chat, which seemed to affirm this point. \u201cRita and Gary say, ‘We pay more than the minimum wage, always have, and our employees are still struggling with inflation and grocery bills. It\u2019s incredibly hard on families and children.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Ranslow also cited an NFIB poll, which found that 96 percent of their members opposed Ramos\u2019s legislation. \u201cThat 96 percent is certainly the highest percentage I have ever seen on a survey in terms of opposition to an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
She urged the small businesses tuned into the call to make their voices heard.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere at NFIB we lobby in the halls of Albany, in the Capitol, every single day,\u201d said Ranslow. \u201cThose buildings are full of advocates that are pushing for the minimum wage, that are pushing for all-electric buildings, whatever it may be. To combat that, we need to hear from the small business communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n \n \n \n\n \n
\n You can subscribe to David Sirota\u2019s investigative journalism project, the\u00a0Lever<\/i>, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThis post was originally published on Jacobin<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The corporate lobbying group fighting a New York state effort to raise the minimum wage has publicly argued that an increase will throw more than a hundred thousand people out of work. But behind closed doors last week, the lobbying group claimed many of its members are already paying their lowest-paid workers more than the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039601"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1039601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1039603,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039601\/revisions\/1039603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1039601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1039601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1039601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}