Guest columnist Maurice Thompson has directed the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law since founding it in 2008. He writes in opposition to the proposed increase in Ohio's minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.
Should an Ohio farmer, butcher, or baker be imprisoned for offering a man a job at $9.50 per hour? In these difficult economic times, two state representatives think so. They propose a bill that, to help their union contributors at all of our expense, would do just that.
There is simply no possibility that these representatives could be blind to the facts as to the effect of minimum wage. Those facts are beyond dispute.
First, increasing the minimum wage actually reduces, rather than raising, these workers' earned income. The simple economic rule is that "when you tax something, you get less of it." And labor is no exception: the minimum wage is a tax on hours worked that leads to less hours worked. In response to the higher wage, employers cut back the number of people employed and the number of hours an employee must work.
As economist Alan Blinder (later of the Clinton Administration) more formally stated, "the primary consequence of the minimum wage law is not an increase in the incomes of the least skilled workers but a restriction of their employment opportunities."
Proving this just last week, Burger King and other companies announced that they would be closing operations at military bases, citing the new $10.10 federal minimum wage applicable there. This didn't help the workers.
Second, the minimum wage is a quintessential example of arrogant political elites treating us as though they are father-figures and we are foolish children who cannot make employment decisions for ourselves.
In a 1923 case, Adkins v. Children's Hospital, the United States Supreme Court held unconstitutional a Washington D.C. minimum wage law for women, explaining that "the right to contract about one's affairs is a part of the liberty of the individual protected by the Due Process clause," and "within this liberty are contracts of employment and labor."
Should not those who desire to be free to choose? Or would we rather that all be treated like children, and employers be imprisoned for treating us as adults?
But this isn't about what's good for Ohioans. The minimum wage is yet another example of Ohio's "pay to play" politics: nothing gets started at the statehouse without a well-funded special interest first offering campaign contributions. And here, that special interest is big labor.
Minimum wage benefits unions even though union workers do not make minimum wage. First, many union collective bargaining agreements peg workers' pay to a certain amount above the minimum wage: increasing that wage means an automatic increase in wages for higher paid union workers.
Secondly, the minimum wage kills union workers' competition: young and minority employees who might work harder or cheaper.
Shredding jobs and hours and treating Ohioans like children are simply the unfortunate consequence of this union junket.
Attempting to raise a family on minimum wage is a symptom of much greater problems - - individually and throughout Ohio. Political elites' meddling is the problem, not the solution.