Maryland legislators’ good intentions do not change the fact that living wages result in job loss, particularly among the less skilled and less educated.
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.
The increased cost of labor is folded into a bid for a state contract that is then passed on to the state government (which is funded by taxpayers).
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.
Any way you slice it, increasing the minimum wage in Michigan… is likely to make it more difficult for the working poor to find jobs. …those who most need the work will have a harder time finding it.
Living wage proposals are economically unfair because they change the basis on which our economy operates. Instead of allowing the market forces to determine pay, living wages put the interests of employees above all other consideration…and they base wages on what the worker wants instead of on the value of work performed.
…the stated goal behind the living wage movement is poverty reduction, and many of the ordinances mandate a wage that would lift a family of four above the poverty level. However, as with minimum wage increases, economic studies have shown that living wage mandates do more harm than good to those living in poverty through resulting job elimination and shifting entry-level jobs from lower-skilled workers to higher-skilled workers.
The living wage movement has become the latest effort to impose socialism on the United States, one city at a time.
This is bad news for cities. The living wage poses a big threat to their economic health, because the costs and restrictions it imposes on the private sector will destroy jobs —especially low-wage jobs — and send businesses fleeing to other locales.
Unfortunately, living wage laws may have an unintended consequence of causing low-wage workers to be replaced by higher skilled, more educated workers. Living wage ordinances hit hardest at new entrants to the labor force.
