Higher minimum wages, pot legalization and limits on school choice will harm the intended beneficiaries.
New year, same lousy policies.
Last week, a judge in California placed a temporary hold on a law that would raise the state minimum wage for fast-food workers as high as $22 an hour. The law was signed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom last summer and set to be implemented on Jan. 1. But a petition to overturn it by voter referendum in 2024 has gathered more than a million signatures, which prompted the restraining order.
For now, California is getting a reprieve, but the other 26 states that are hiking the minimum wage this year probably won’t be so lucky. Proponents of these measures say they reduce poverty, but history shows that they are more likely to reduce employment—particularly among younger, less experienced workers—by making job seekers too costly to hire.
Even people who keep their jobs after a minimum-wage increase often find themselves assigned fewer hours of work and thus making less money than they might have expected. That was the finding of a University of Washington analysis after Seattle hiked its minimum wage in 2015. “Increased wages,” the study concluded, “were offset by modest reductions in employment and hours, thereby limiting the extent to which higher wages directly translated into higher average earnings.”
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and a Fox News commentator. Follow him on Twitter here.
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