Musings from Brian J. Noggle: A Startling Turn of Events

A Startling Turn of Events

In a startling turn of events, when the price of something goes up, consumers buy less of it. This holds true of labor, where the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has performed some hard-hitting post-election journalism to discover that businesses will hire fewer employees at minimum wage now that the state's citizens have ordered businesses to do so:

26 percent increase in Missouri's minimum wage to $6.50 an hour will hit urban and rural workers hardest because some may lose their jobs or not be hired as businesses adjust to hold down costs, some business owners and analysts say.

So Missourians have elected to lessen customer service to themselves and to promote the use of illegal immigrants whereever possible (it's not that they do jobs Americans don't want, but they do take pay that Americans cannot).

Meanwhile, in Illinois, the re-elected Governor Rod Blagojevich cannot wait to impose an additional hiring freeze in his state:

Two days after his re-election, Gov. Rod Blagojevich wasted no time spending some political capital on what had been one of his biggest campaign promises: raising the minimum wage, again.

Such a campaign pledge had helped Blagojevich win his first term in 2002 and it became a pledge he made good on when he signed a $1.35-an-hour hike above the federal level in the summer of 2003.

On Thursday, he called his proposed $1 hike, which would raise the minimum wage to $7.50 an hour, his "first order of business" as the legislature returns for its fall session next week.

Meanwhile, in the bowels of the Power-to-the-People headquarters in Missouri, the master tacticians have begun their planning for agitation for the next attempt to raise the minimum wage in Missouri or select parts thereof to a "living wage" because the electoral victory on Tuesday was only the latest victory in a struggle to make the job market equal. In which half the people make a living wage of some sort or another, and the other half are unemployed.

- posted by Brian J. @ 5:50 AM