ch: Our Values in Action

Min Wage: Conservative Rhetoric vs. "Evidence"

Last week, I noted a study that found minimum wage increases actually help small businesses. Now comes even more evidence that the minimum wage helps, not hurts, business.

In 2005, Florida was a battleground for the minimum wage fight; there, Floridians voted to raise the state minimum wage to $6.15 (and eventually $6.40 due to inflation).

At the time, according to a new report by professors at The University of Chicago and Florida International University, conservatives sounded the alarm that the minimum wage increase would effectively kill the Florida economy:

Senator Mel Martinez claimed the law would cause job loss, and Governor Jeb Bush also opposed it. Darrell Kelley, president of Enterprise Florida, claimed the raise could result in a decline in health benefits coverage. Finally, national opponents chimed in. Grover Norquist claimed that “Florida cannot afford the economic pain of job losses compounded with the inevitable increases in the costs of essential goods and services.”

One year later, a pesky thing called ‘evidence’ appears to contradict those alarmist claims:

Ten months after the law took effect, Enterprise Florida reported that “Florida continues to lead the nation in job growth” and the state “ranks 5th in the nation in the total number of insourcing jobs.” In a survey of Floridian retailers following the law’s implementation, “71 percent said the overall business climate in Florida would be better in the coming quarter than in the same quarter last year”, and in a recent publication by the Florida Retail Federation on the state business climate, there is no mention of the minimum wage as a pressing issue of concern. Finally, a recent Tampa Tribune article reported that some big contributors to a coalition of opponents of the state minimum wage “have had stellar financial performances since May, including Publix Super Markets of Lakeland and Darden Restaurants of Orlando”.

Read the report, “The Florida Minimum Wage After One Year,” here