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Kentucky Minimum Wage Hike?

By Kentucky Club for Growth

The Kentucky Senate passed a hike in Kentucky's minimum wage Thursday. What does this decision mean for voters, businesses and unskilled workers?

It means that the Kentucky Senate has little to no understanding of basic economics. When lawmakers decide that employees are worth a minimum amount, they are not making workers more valuable. When a legislature decides that you must pay a worker a minimum amount - and decides that no worker may accept an amount below a proscribed minimum - that legislature has decided that the free market cannot be trusted to set prices for labor.

It means that the business community realizes that lawmakers don't trust them to do what's best for their own bottom lines. Businesses often exist on very narrow profit margins. When a government arbitrarily forces businesses to pay more for labor, that government is harming the businesses that will have to endure the additional cost. It means that businesses will have to make myriad difficult hiring and firing decisions to preserve those narrow profits. A minimum wage is a tax on labor.

It means that the poor and unskilled workers will find a harsher labor market. Those workers who need experience and job skills the most will have a harder time getting hired knowing that their value may not measure up to the new minimum wage. These workers deserve a chance at the first rung of the employment ladder. A hike in the minimum wage simply puts that first job out of reach for many workers.

The bottom line is that any lawmaker who supports a wage control or a price control is not a lawmaker who wants Kentucky's economy to grow. That lawmaker may know that the economics of wage controls work against Kentucky's best interests, but feels compelled to obey the misguided notions of certain voters.

The Kentucky Club for Growth endorses the free market as the best means to assign prices to goods, services and labor. Wage and price controls do not support growth. Lawmakers who support minimum wages do not support Kentucky's future!

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