Will raising minimum wage help New Yorkers?
Posted at: 03/20/2013 11:28 PM
By: Lynette Adams | WHEC.com
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Increasing New York's minimum wage is part of the tentative budget deal, but some say it will do more harm than good.
The Employment Policies Institute says the increase won't help those who need a raise the most.
The institute also says it will cost New York about 28,000 jobs over the next three years.
So why won't it help and how did the group reach that number?
The Employment Policies Institute, based in Washington D.C., has conducted numerous studies on minimum wage and they say history shows us that raising the minimum wage hasn't helped ease poverty or put money in the pockets of people who are the poorest in our society.
In fact, EPI Research Director Mike Saltsman says raising the minimum wage over the next three years to $9 will give minimum wage workers a 24-percent raise.
Saltsman says this will make it very costly for businesses to hire and train workers, while only getting a small percentage return on that hire.
Based on data from the Census Bureau and comparing other studies on this topic, Saltsman is predicting the net effect of this will be a loss statewide of nearly 28,000 jobs. What's worse, Saltsman says only about 8-percent of the people making minimum wage are single parent households.
“If you look at the breakdown of people who earn the minimum wage, you find that a good chunk of them are living in families that are far above the poverty line. They're second and third earners,” said Saltsman in a phone interview with News10NBC. “For the small number of people, like I said, the single parent families or people at the minimum wage for a longer period of time, we need to find better ways to supplement their income. That's why we support things like the earned income credit.”
Saltsman says expanding the earned income credit could put another $6,700 in the hands of full-time minimum wage earners. He says this is a targeted impact that will not hurt small businesses.
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