Pirate's Cove

I spend quite a bit of time on NJ.com. Even though I haven’t lived there in decades, I’m still a Giants and Devils fan, so, I end up catching a lot of other news, which is Modern Socialism in a nutshell. This article is actually rather even handed for the site, which means it unintentionally exposes just how bad this whole $15 an hour push is

N.J. is hiking the minimum wage to $15. What will it cost taxpayers?

The lifeguards and visitors guides at state parks. The entry-level employees at the county animal shelter. The interns at your local library.

They’re all about to get pay raises, and it’s going to cost taxpayers one way or another.

For years, businesses, labor advocates and lawmakers debated raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Would the benefit to workers outweigh the cost to small businesses?

But local governments largely stayed out of the fray, and the consequences for New Jersey’s finances and local governments’ budgets flew under the radar.

For the state, it means an initial increase of $3.2 million in wages for the first year, a figure that balloons to anywhere from $300 million to $600 million five years from now. New Jersey’s counties and local governments say results will vary, but it’s likely fees will rise and services cut in some jurisdictions to counteract increased payroll costs.

And taxes will skyrocket in a state that already has very high taxes, especially income and property taxes. Business taxes will go up to pay for this bit of government hooking up their employees.

The price tag increases dramatically once the minimum wage is fully phased in. Senate President Stephen Sweeney said his office projected it will range between $300 million and $600 million.

“It’s a big number because we have a lot of nonprofits that we do business with, and if we don’t increase their funding, they’re going to have to cut back services,” he said. “It’s not just direct government employees. It’s the people that are depending on us funding them.”

So the private nonprofits will be required to increase their pay due to this, as well as the coming regular $15 an hour increase for private employers. Who pays? Surprise? Surprise!

Until recently, local governments were exempt from the state’s minimum wage and responsible only for paying the federally mandated minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. And state Sen. Kristin Corrado, R-Passaic, has introduced a bill (S3492) that would restore that reprieve.

“The new minimum wage law is forcing local leaders to make impossible choices,” Corrado said in a statement. “Many of our towns currently provide extremely affordable community services, such as day care, summer camp and recreational classes for seniors. The unintended consequence of this law is that many of these programs will disappear, unless we take action to keep local government programs accessible.”

Government creates the problem then wants to “solve” the problem. There’s only so much money, and if the anti-business and big tax policies are driving people and businesses away, it can’t be paid for.

Toms River, Ocean County, estimated it would cost more than $575,000 a year to comply with a $15 an hour minimum wage and predicted higher registration fees for recreation and youth programs, beach tags and local swimming pool.

Which means fewer people able to afford all these services. And fewer will use them. Which means less revenue. For those saying, like in the article comments “I’m ok with people being able to afford the basic necessities of life. If it costs me a little more, so what?” Well, what happens next, besides the reduction in workforce employees, not allowing OT, reducing many positions to part time, is that the costs get passed on, so the cost of living rises, and then the hourly wage has much reduced buying power.

Summer jobs will be limited, because no one wants to pay a high school or college kid $15 an hour to fill the extra positions necessary for seasonal work. And the ones making $15 an hour? They’ll want more, because they’ve been on the job longer. These aren’t all unintended consequences, because everyone has stated what will happen. It’s happened in cities that have done this.