Increases in Federal Minimum Wage Hurt Small Business and Employees
NFIB opposes any increase in the current federal minimum wage. Mandatory wage increases hurt not only small businesses, but their employees as well. Big corporations do not have to absorb the cost because most minimum-wage jobs are offered by small businesses. Government manipulation of the starting wage has failed as tool of social and/or economic justice. It has not been proven to reduce poverty or narrow the income gap and puts a stranglehold on America's top job creators: small businesses. The overwhelming majority of economists continue to affirm the job-killing nature of mandatory wage increases. Mandatory minimum-wage increases end up reducing employment levels for those people with the lowest skills.
On May 25, President Bush signed the Iraq war supplemental funding bill into law. Hidden in that bill was the current federal minimum wage hike supported by big labor. Over the next 24 months, this bill will arbitrarily increase the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25. To offset the damage done by this wage hike, NFIB worked hard to also have a small business tax package included in the bill. Unfortunately, the tax package included in the bill signed by the president is only a $4.8 billion package, and not the original $8.3 billion package supported by NFIB.
Download the new Fair Labor Standards Act minimum-wage poster from the Department of Labor
