Recently, the federal minimum wage rate has received a lot of attention. Tales of hard working Americans said to be unable to afford to put food on the table for their children are paraded in front of the media while the statistics and reality of wages in this country are conveniently left out of the story. Take the fact that the majority of minimum wage workers are part time and under the age of 25 and ask yourself, who will hire a teenager for $15 per hour when they can employ a more mature, experienced worker? They also fail to mention that on average, small business owners already pay their employees above the minimum wage rate or that entrepreneurs across the country are gravely concerned about the potential impact such a measure could have on their ability to keep operating their business.
For 2015, Indiana was ranked 7th in the country in the state business tax climate survey according to the Tax Foundation. It’s no accident that our state is the only one in the Midwest that made the top 10 list nationally. Recent cuts to both the corporate and individual tax rates as well as the elimination of the business personal property tax for many will most likely leave us ranked even higher next year. That’s thanks to the Governor and the legislature creating a hospitable economic environment for our businesses.
If you raise wages from the bottom, gone will be the days of starting with a training wage and working your way up. If entry level jobs are paying $15 an hour, why would someone considering a career in social service make the effort to go to school and become licensed? Where is the incentive for an Emergency Medical Technician making $10 an hour to continue their ongoing education required to maintain their license if they can make more money doing a less demanding job?
The federal push for $15 per hour will no doubt handcuff small businesses by hindering their ability to grow and deterring them from hiring additional employees. The very engine that creates the majority of new jobs, small business, will be priced out of the fair market as they are forced to compensate for their elevated expenses by increasing the costs of their goods or services. Additionally, an escalation of that magnitude to the minimum wage will create a sub culture of idle employees who would otherwise be incentivized to work harder for a wage increase or educate themselves so that they may achieve a career instead of becoming complacent with an entry level job.
Barbara J. Quandt
NFIB Indiana State Director
