As reported in this paper (Oct. 5, Page 6A), Linda Pall would like to impose a minimum wage on Moscow so "every person in the city can make living wages." (This Daily News misquotation was corrected Oct. 6, Page 3A, to "a living wage ordinance for city of Moscow employees.")
I write to sound an alarm for the sake not only of those who hire and pay wages, but to those who earn them.
Three years ago, the Seattle City Council imposed a $15 per hour minimum wage. Subsequent findings of six University of Washington economists confirm the regulation is hurting the wage earners it was supposed to help. Businesses have an incentive either not to hire new workers, making entry into the job market more difficult, or to find efficiencies that cut the weekly hours of workers. The UW report concludes that Seattle's minimum wage law has cost about 5,000 lower-wage jobs in the city, and that low-skilled workers have lost $125 per month per job as employers cut hours. (The Seattle Times, June 26).
Recall the recession of 2008 when work dried up here; carpenters, mechanics and workers in service jobs, and others, were laid off. As a city, we should encourage as much job creation as possible. We need entry level jobs where young people can train for their future, and we should prepare for future recessions, when workers might have to take part-time work for lower wages, even in retirement.
We have forgotten work is something humans are uniquely designed to do - not work as an end in itself, but work as beneficial for the worker and for those he serves. The tragic descent from loss of work to the modern sickness of "boredom," to filling the void with alcohol and opioid is not just a PBS story; it happens too often in Moscow. We need a resilient local economy - one with plenty of work.
Fred Banks
Lynaire Banks
Moscow
