Should you care about the minimum wage as a HR Pro?
The current law raises the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 per hour in 2009 (it's currently at $5.85). For most
of us, the move upward in the minimum wage doesn't impact the businesses we support. However, if you are in a tough environment like a poultry processing plant paying minimum wage, the move hurts your margins. If you employ 200 employees at the minimum, the move to $7.25 adds over $800,000 in expenses you didn't have in 2006.
As the "Capitalist" title might indicate, I'm a big believer in less regulation and free markets, but it's always been tough for me to get my Irish up about a move in the minimum wage. Lots of people in the know argue that any move upward in the minimum wage actually hurts the economy by forcing costs on entrepreneurs. Still, it's been hard for me to get too worked up about.
Then, I see the move already formulating to move the minimum wage to $9.50 per hour on the heels of recent changes. Now that same poultry processing plant has 1.6M in additional expense per the proposed revision.
That's where they lose me. Doesn't anyone get that $9.50 in rural Georgia vs. California are two very different things? Sounds like a perfect time to let the markets figure out what the wage needs to be (which it has done pretty well to date), or in the worst case, let the states figure it out on their own.
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