Business owner details what $15 an hour would mean for him.
In spite of Oregon’s minimum wage increase from $9.10 to $9.25
this year, calls for a $15 minimum wage by 2018 are getting louder. Small
business owner Dirk Moeller wants to silence the noise.
Moeller, of Salem, is the co-owner of Business Connections, a
24-hour telephone answering service. Business Connections pairs each client
(from a tow truck dispatch service to a dentist’s office) with a receptionist,
so calls or messages are never left unanswered or unheard.
Moeller says paying his employees $15 per hour would force him
to either raise his rates, eliminate profit sharing programs and health
insurance coverage, or hire more experienced candidates.
“If minimum wage goes up to $15 per hour, that’s about a $3.50
per hour increase for us, about $2,800 per week,” Moeller says. “That comes out
to an increased cost up to $145,600 per year.”
But if he raises his costs, his customers could cut him and his
business out of the equation entirely, with automation. If he were forced to
hire more experienced candidates, young employees who need it most would miss
out on the training he provides. Business Connections has 30 workers, about
half of whom are high school and college students.
NFIB/Oregon State Director Jan Meekcoms understands Moeller’s
concerns. Proposals to raise the minimum wage, mandate paid sick leave and
require a state retirement fund for the private sector are a “full-frontal
assault” on small businesses, Meekcoms wrote in the Salem Business
Journal.
Meekcoms said these bills “add to an already deep-rooted
feeling of uncertainty for employers that will have a limiting effect on expansion
and employment plans.”
As the minimum wage debate continues, Moeller encourages
workers who are looking to earn more money to take classes at a community
college or online and develop a skill set that will make them more
hirable—“where that small business [employer] is going to say, ‘Hey, you’re
worth [paying] two or three more dollars an hour.’”
