To its credit, the Albuquerque
Journal has granted space to a number of opinion pieces on the upcoming vote to increase the Minimum Wage.
ABQjournal: Lack of Data Foils Minimum Wage Evaluation By David Pfeffer, Santa Fe City Councilor
High toned
phrases highlighted Santa Fe’s “living wage” debate. Proponents haughtily blamed business for getting rich off
“the backs of the poor.” One adult working in two jobs or two adults working in one family proved reason enough to “do something about
it.” Articulate opposition could not hold against this supposedly moral stand. …
We do know that some employers have
relocated. The local newspaper’s printing plant has left town, leaving only the white collar staff within the city limits. We know of
businesses that have opted not to come here. …
[W]e may be kicking up by another dollar an hour this fact-blind
insistence on a supposedly moral stand— a stand taken, not only without regard to “immigrant status,” but without regard to
the damage it is doing to the very people it is supposedly designed to help.
David Pfeffer, a Republican
running for the U.S. Senate, was the only Santa Fe city councilor to vote against the wage ordinance.
class="mine">The sniveling tone of the preceding may be all the reason one needs to vote against Pfeffer in any election. I’m amazed anybusiness finds it cheaper to relocate; such a business cares as little about its customers as it does about its employees. Read the whole
thing to see just how important the “immigrant status” issue is to him (and a block of xenophobic Republicans).
In spite of
Pfeffer’s claim that there is no data on Santa Fe (which hardly supports voting against the issue in Albuquerque), what do you
know, here’s some data….
ABQjournal: Higher Pay Good for Santa Fe Workers,
Economy By Monsignor Jerome Martinez and City Councilor David Coss, Living Wage Advocates
Here are some key
facts:
# We have reduced poverty. According to a report just issued by the state Human Services
Department, recipients of Temporary Aid to Needy Families have fallen 9.7 percent in the last year, while in the state as a whole it has
only gone down 0.6 percent.
# We have gained jobs. According to a Sept. 22 report from the New Mexico
Department of Labor, 1,400 jobs have been added to the Santa Fe work force since the living wage came into effect. This 2.3 percent rate
of job growth is a little more than the state’s 2.1 percent job growth rate during this same period. Santa Fe’s 2.3 percent growth rate
is very high, as the state’s job growth, at 2.1 percent, ranked 12th highest in the country.
The hospitality industry in
Santa Fe did even better, adding 300 jobs, a 3.2 percent growth rate. The unemployment rate in Santa Fe in August was 3.8 percent, down
from 4.1 percent a year ago. The Santa Fe rate is much better than the state as a whole, which had 5.3 percent unemployment last month.
…
Low-wage workers often have to choose between putting food on the table or leaving their children alone and working a second
or third job.
The typical low-wage worker is not a teenager and is not new to the workforce. Forty percent
are single moms. The average age of low-wage workers is 31 years. They have been working an average of over 13 years.
class="mine">Note improvements in the hospitality industry, which depends a lot on low-wage workers.No one can be surprised the
Journal comes out against the measure. Their support of public campaign financing does stun me, though.
ABQjournal: Recommendations On Ballot Propositions
Living Wage, No: Albuquerque should avoid being at
the bleeding edge of economic actions more appropriately taken by federal or state government. And voters should be wary of a clause
inside the Trojan Horse measure that sacks employers’ right to control access to their work place.
Public
Campaign Finance, Yes: The municipal campaign trail is being repaved in gold every four years. … The price tag: one-tenth of 1
percent of the city’s operational budget.
Ripping up the golden campaign trail may have unintended and unfortunate
consequences, just like McCain-Feingold got hijacked by the independent “527” committees. But restraining political inflation is
worth a try.
“Worth a try.” Wow, the Journal backs an experiment and its attendant risks. Surely
the same argument supports raising the Minimum Wage and tweaking it as we see its impact. mjh
ABQjournal: Guest Columns [mjh: in some strange lottery-
fashion, various pages at the Journal are free now and then — as the pro-ordinance article quoted above is today.]