Unintended consequences Quotes

Elimination of sections 327 and 328 [of the Safe Water Drinking Act] would not make production of oil and natural gas in the United States any safer, but could substantially increase domestic oil and natural gas production costs, thereby decreasing domestic supply.

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David E. Bolin, deputy director of the State Oil and Gas Board of Alabama, Testimony, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives.

Maryland legislators’ good intentions do not change the fact that living wages result in job loss, particularly among the less skilled and less educated.

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Jenkins, Jill, Employment Policy Institute.
09/28/2007 | Full Details | Law(s): Living Wage

The bottom line remains that employers will have little motivation to hire low-skilled workers—those whose inexperience and lack of productivity does not warrant a wage meeting or exceeding the proposed living wage amount. These workers, who most desperately need experience, will be the ones left most vulnerable. Instead of being able to establish a foothold in the job market, they will have to rely on other means to provide for themselves—most often state-assisted.

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Carl Gipson, Director, Center for Small Business.
03/01/2007 | Full Details | Law(s): Living Wage

Where we are headed for, you are not going to see those cool, little local restaurants. You are going to see a bunch of corporate restaurants, and the rest of the city is going to look like the restaurant dynamic on Fisherman’s Wharf.

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Eric Rubin, a managing partner in the restaurant Tres Agaves, The San Francisco Chronicle.

San Francisco Supervisors never tire of over-regulating small businesses, and then cry over the intrusion of national chains that can financially absorb their absurd labor regulations. The Supervisors are not helping workers, they are writing a recipe for empty storefronts.

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San Francisco Republican Party Chairman Mike DeNunzio.

A higher minimum wage will trigger thousands of layoffs in lower-paying jobs, hurting, rather than helping, Ohioans who need higher wages the most.

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“Ohio November Ballot Book” Submitted by Ohioans to Protect Personal Privacy; John C. Mahaney, Jr., Andrew Doehrel and Ty Pine.
10/30/2006 | Full Details | Law(s): Minimum Wage

If our manufacturers leave, whether for North Carolina or China, and they take their greenhouse gases with them, we might not have solved the problem but exacerbated it instead.

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California Chamber of Commerce President Allan Zaremberg. Greenwire.

The truth is that if your labor is worth $6.75 an hour and the minimum wage is raised to $7.75, you simply become unemployable. The first rung of the ladder is gone, and there's no place to start….This legislation is the ultimate expression of the cruelest of all human lies: ‘I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'

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Tom McClintock, California Republican state senator. The Los Angeles Times.
315304/11/2006 | Full Details | Law(s): Minimum Wage

Most troubling, though, is the fact that the least skilled employees are those who are being most hurt by this ordinance. Voters in other areas considering an increase in the minimum wage must consider these unintended consequences that end up hurting those who the law is supposed to help.

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Yelowitz, Aaron. Employment Policy Institute.
320509/22/2005 | Full Details | Law(s): Living Wage

Wage mandates ignore the principals of free market economies; they prevent businesses from making profits, growing and hiring more workers; and they base wages on what the worker wants instead of on the value of work performed.

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Amicus brief filed by Chamber of Commerce with the Supreme Court of Louisiana.
11/21/2004 | Full Details | Law(s): Minimum Wage

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