Utah’s Potential Minimum-Wage Hike Sparks Disagreement

By Tracy Medley, 1-02-07

The Deseret Morning News reports that while a nationwide minimum-wage increase may be on the way; some of Utah’s business oriented special interests groups will do their best to fight it. Specifically, if the national endeavor fails groups such as the Utah Restaurant Association plan to combat any statewide legislative attempts to put more money in the pockets of individual workers.

Most know that the Federal minimum wage has lingered at $5.15 per hour since 1997; that’s 10 years ago and yet a decade is apparently too soon for some to consider paying American workers even a bit more. Some, like the URA’s president Melva Sine like to scare the American consumer with threat of higher prices. “There are only two possible outcomes to a minimum-wage increase,” Sine told the D-News. “People say you won’t lose jobs if you increase the minimum wage. That means that the only other alternative is for businesses to increase prices.” While that may be true, it’s hardly terrifying since businesses raise their prices all the time for a number of reasons; usually to accommodate the rising costs placed on them by fellow businesses.

So, let me get this straight; businesses don’t mind increasing the price to their customers in order meet the general, rising cost of doing business with other businesses, but escalating costs to pay their employees not-quite a living wage will force them into bankruptcy and cripple the American economy? I’m having a hard time buying it.

So is Mark Knold, a senior economist with the Utah Department of Workforce services who told the D-News that raising the minimum wage “probably would have very minimal effect right now, because with the labor market as tight as it is, the unofficial minimum wage is already well above $5.15.” Knold argues that since most businesses have already increased wage standards on their own, now is the perfect time for the government to get on board. “The concern about raising the minimum wage, by those who don’t like to do it, is that the government is artificially telling the market what to do. If that’s your concern, the best time for the government to raise the minimum wage is when the market has already raised it. In this environment, there’s really no impact, because the market itself has already driven that wage up,” Knold told Jenifer K. Nii of the Deseret News.

We want Utah businesses to succeed, but we want our citizens to succeed as well and let’s be honest 7 bucks an hour still falls short of a living wage. Amy MadrilI, a single mother who was working two minimum-wage jobs was profiled in recent Deseret News article and she summed it up best when she issued a challenge to wage-increase detractors, “They look at us like we don’t try. I would like to have one of those people, one day, do our job and tell their story. Just one day, and I guarantee you, they won’t make it. I guarantee you, they wouldn’t want to do it again.”

When it comes to improving the lives of thousands of Utahns; raising the minimum wage is just what it claims to be: the minimum.


*Disclaimer: I worked as the receptionist for the Utah Restaurant Association under the direction of Melva Sine during the summer of 1999.
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