Hawaii small-business association recommends Legislature drop the issue
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Melissa Pavlicek, Hawaii State Director, 808-447-1840, [email protected]
or Tony Malandra, Senior Media Manager, 415-640-5156, [email protected]
HONOLULU, April 10, 2019—Hawaii’s leading small-business association today recommended the legislative conference committee trying to forge a new minimum-wage law from House Bill 1191 and Senate Bill 789 let the issue die, instead.
“Raising the state’s minimum-wage rate sounds compelling, but the risk of losing jobs is real, and right now it would be best to let the issue drop, given the market realities showing employee compensation and small-business optimism at record highs,” said Melissa Pavlicek, Hawaii state director for NFIB, the nation’s voice of small business. “Meddling only makes a hash of things.”
Pavlicek pointed to this week’s release of NFIB’s monthly Small Business Economic Trends (SBET) report showing a continued “historically strong level” of small-business optimism. The NFIB Research Center has collected SBET data since 1986. The SBET is one of the few archival data sets on small business, particularly when research questions address business operations rather than opinions. Today, it’s the largest, longest-running data set on small business economic conditions available, used by the Federal Reserve, presidential administrations, Congress, governors, and state legislatures across the nation as the gold standard measurement on the economic health of Main Street enterprises.
“As a natural consequence of the good small business economic news, one component of the SBET was bound to suffer,” said Pavlicek, “and that is the record high number of small-business owners having difficulty filling jobs. It’s the type of problem a strong economy has, and it’s the type of problem legislatures should avoid exacerbating by inserting themselves into a market that is naturally increasing wages.”
In the latest NFIB Jobs Report, a closer-looked-at subset of the SBET, NFIB Chief Economist William Dunkelberg wrote, “The economy is at full employment, hiring plans are strong, and the record-high levels of job openings are positive indicators for economic growth. The main concern is the lack of qualified workers. Small business owners report that pay isn’t the issue, it’s finding someone to pay. Small businesses’ willingness to hire shows they see an economy that is solid enough to continue investing in labor.”
Added Pavlicek, “Not a small body of economic research, but a predominant one, shows meddling with the minimum wage has the immediate effects of punishing the least-skilled workers by robbing them of opportunities for work, shrinking job opportunities for teens and young adults looking for their first job, and reducing overtime work for those wanting to make a little extra money. Increased wages are happening now and naturally. What a great time it would be to leave well enough alone.”
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For more than 75 years, NFIB has been advocating on behalf of America’s small and independent business owners, both in Washington, D.C., and in all 50 state capitals. NFIB is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, and member-driven. Since our founding in 1943, NFIB has been exclusively dedicated to small and independent businesses and remains so today. For more information, please visit nfib.com.
NFIB Hawaii
1099 Alakea St. Suite 2530
Honolulu, HI 96813
808-447-1840
NFIB.com/HI
Twitter: @NFIB_HI
