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The justification for the increase from
those who proposed it is that you can’t
live on the minimum wage, and that we
need to get people out of poverty by
forcing businesses to pay them more.
This argument completely ignores reality
in favor of more “feel good” legislation,
as has been the case too often here in
Delaware in the recent past.
The reality is that to pay people more
money, businesses have to raise costs
across the board. If a worker makes
more, but their expenses rise as well,
what good has been accomplished?
In addition, the Congressional Budget
Office has stated that the benefits of a
minimum wage increase accrue mostly
to people who are not in poverty. Just
19 percent of the benefits of a $10.10
minimum wage would accrue to those
in poverty, and that only 40 percent of
workers who earn within 25 cents per
hour of the minimum wage work full-
time. They also state that 500,000 jobs
would be lost if the minimum wage was
raised over 10 dollars.
All of these feel-good bills mask the true
problem, and that is that Delaware’s
economy has driven out all of the good
middle-class jobs, and the jobs that have
replaced them have all been at the low
end of the pay scale. So to mask their
failure to develop the conditions for a
solid economy, efforts like these are all
that remain.
There are many ways to help our fellow
Delawareans out of poverty that are far,
far better than raising the minimum
wage and driving more employers out
of business.
In addition, I and many of my fellow
senators have cosponsored a bill to make
the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)
refundable in Delaware, so that we can
reward the poorest working Delawareans
with a tax cut.
The EITC has been hailed
by officials nationwide, from both sides
of the aisle, as the best way to alleviate
poverty while rewarding work.
In addition, we need to provide for the
highest-quality educational choices and
skills training for our young people,
encourage stable families, and promote
ideas like Right To Work, so that major
manufacturers will look to bring their
solid middle-class jobs to Delaware
once again.
Real economic growth is the fastest cure
to many of our societal ills, but we’re
simply not seeing that in the current
restrictive, overregulated environment
in Delaware.
And this minimum wage increase is
another red flag for the few employers
that are considering moving to Delaware
that we are closed for business.
choice he would have following the
proposed increase would be to fully
automate, and lay off his entire workforce.
The stakes were high, and they were
crystal clear. And still, the Democrats
voted to force this increase—the highest
in the region and one of the highest in
the country—on the Delaware economy,
knowing full well that it would be our
locally owned businesses and our vital
charities that would suffer.
I was also taken aback at the tone with
which some of my Democratic colleagues
spoke of our business owners. Restaurant
owners in particular were billed as
careless, unethical, and downright stupid,
with one senator claiming that restaurants
fail because their owners don’t know how
to run a business.
There was a deep lack of respect for those
who would assume the immense risk of
starting a business, and thereby create jobs
and teach meaningful skills to otherwise
low-skilled workers.
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