Congratulations West Virginia minimum wage workers. As of Jan. 1, you got a pay raise - from $8 per hour to $8.75.
Everyone likes higher pay, and most of us probably deserve it. If the left wing has its way, the minimum wage across the United States will be $15 per hour.
Few people are opposed to higher wages in general, one would guess, but the problem with a government-mandated minimum wage that continually creeps up is that it has a negative effect on the very people it is designed to help.
"Economists point to a crucial question: Will a higher minimum wage reduce the number of jobs for the country's least skilled workers?" asks David Neumark, director of the Center for Economics and Public Policy at the University of California, Irvine, in the Dec. 15, 2015, Wall Street Journal. "President Obama says 'there is no solid evidence that a higher minimum wage costs jobs.'"
"On the contrary," Neumark writes, "a full and fair reading of the evidence shows the opposite. Raising the minimum wage will cost jobs, particularly those held by the least-skilled."
And therein lies the rub. Sure, some entry level workers - and a lot of teenagers working part-time for extra money - will get a pay raise with the minimum wage hike, but how many unskilled workers will lose their jobs or won't ever get hired for that crucial first training job if the jobs disappear due to high costs to employers?
And in West Virginia - the state with the lowest percentage of working-age people working - more employers are needed more than ever. More employers will get more people working. More people working means more people seeking jobs. More people seeking jobs creates a competitive market, forcing employers to increase pay and benefits to attract and retain employees, thereby driving up wages overall.
If you support better wages across the state, support tax and regulatory reforms that - instead of adding costs and burdens to business - make it easier for employers to succeed and create more jobs.