South Dakotans making minimum wage, you get a raise in ten days. Happy New Year, and you're welcome!
The Chicken Littles who warn that we heartless liberals (apparently that's 55.05% of South Dakotans) are going to hurt the poor by killing their job opportunities. Once again, Minnesota says that's not so. Minnesota's Legislature raised its minimum wage August 1. According to the latest data from the state, Minnesota added 6,600 jobs in November. The hotel and restaurant sector, where one would find a higher proportion of minimum wage jobs, added 5,000 jobs in November. These job gains continue the post-minimum-wage-raise trend of decreasing unemployment in Minnesota that I reported last month.
We should watch South Dakota's job numbers (as well as consumer spending!) closely over the coming year to see if we can discern any impact from raising the minimum wage. If Minnesota's example holds, we should see better economic outcomes... and we should make sure the voters and not the Governor get the credit.
If Pubs are smart they'll leave this intact, then when the economic gains accrue ($15 million/month in increased consumer spending will soon start working its way through the state), they'll take all the credit. Watch.
The MN Chamber of Commerce has stopping the automatic adjustments, part of the minimum wage law, is on their agenda for the next session. The MN House will have a Republican majority in January, but Democrats still have the rest. Not gonna happen.
The CoM argument is that adjustments based on inflation are unfair to the business. Of course we never hear that about CEO's massive income when the business is declining, or golden parachutes when the CEO was so bad he was fired.