Minimum Wage (Page 48 )

  • Raising minimum wage stands to hurt low-income workers

    February 2005 ·  Craig Garthwaite ·  Detroit Free Press

    No one who listened to Gov. Jennifer’s Granholm’s State of the State address could have mistaken her administration’s top priority — job growth. And no wonder. While the nation added 2.2 million new jobs last year, Michigan lost nearly 50,000, bringing the statewide unemployment rate to 7.3 percent — tying for last place with Alaska. “We will recover … but not through the traditional solutions of another…
  • Raising New Jersey’s minimum wage is bad economic policy

    February 2005 ·  Craig Garthwaite ·  Trenton Times

    Some lawmakers are hailing the proposed 39% increase in New Jersey’s minimum wage as a life preserver for employees struggling in a stormy economic sea. But Trenton’s “heroics” ensure that thousands of low-skilled New Jersey residents who need entry-level employment opportunities will find it even more difficult to stay afloat. The State House ought to remember that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan cautioned Congress just last summer…
  • Unintended Consequences

    December 2004 ·  Craig Garthwaite ·  New York Sun

    When it convenes on Monday, the New York Senate is expected to vote on rejecting Governor Pataki’s veto of an increase in the state’s minimum wage. If it succeeds, New York’s minimum wage will spike to nearly 39% over the federal rate by 2007. But instead of giving low-income New Yorkers an early Christmas gift, senators voting for the wage hike will be saddling them with a…
  • Higher pay hurts prospects of people it claims to help

    November 2004 ·  Craig Garthwaite ·  Asbury Park Press

    New Jersey appears set to raise its statewide minimum wage nearly 36 percent over the federal rate now that Senate President Richard J. Codey has become acting governor. Unfortunately, Trenton’s pending wage law threatens the long-term economic prospects of the people it is intended to benefit. Lawmakers who make wage floors the centerpiece of their fight against poverty have ignored the changing demographics of the minimum-wage labor…
  • Increasing lowest wages harms poor

    September 2004 ·  Craig Garthwaite ·  Los Angeles Daily News

    “One thing I learned about America,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told the Republican National Convention last week, “is that if you work hard and play by the rules, this country is truly open to you. You can achieve anything.” Schwarzenegger should keep those words in mind as he considers a bill – now sitting on his desk – to increase California’s minimum wage to $7.75 an hour. The…
  • Better Ways to Help Those Earning Little

    September 2004 ·  Craig Garthwaite ·  Atlanta Journal-Constitution

    The annual Labor Day lament that minimum wage employees have gone too long without a pay hike misses a crucial reality: low-wage earners don’t need federal legislation to get a raise. Through hard work, improving their skills and demonstrating their value to employers, the majority of minimum wage employees quickly earn their own pay increases. Nearly two-thirds of minimum wage earners who remain in the work force…