Don't pass Minimum Wage initiative

Editor,

"Minimum wage" is a terrible idea. If I-151 passes and if you are already working for minimum wage, beware for your job. Your employer has some options: he/she might fire minimum wage employees who aren't worth the pay increase, or cut back hours for all staff, or delay pay raises for deserving staff, or raise prices to consumers.

Obviously this has several bad effects: It actually puts the poorest job-seekers out of work, it indirectly punishes good employees whom your employer might prefer to reward, it restricts his plans for more hiring or expansion (and that means less future jobs,) and it costs customers more for the product — maybe the very same people whom we're trying to "help" by supporting a minimum wage law.

Government cannot create anything. All it can do is reallocate and redistribute. "Minimum wage" is a good example of this. There is no magic money that will appear out of nowhere to increase wages for the poor — it can only be taken from others, and in this case, from the very poorest who will lose jobs.

Studies have proven this. Here's a recent one: www.ca.lp.org/lp20060815.shtml

Some workers would be willing to work for below minimum wage just to have a job. After all, $5.15 an hour is better than $0 an hour. With minimum wage laws, you take away the freedom of these lowest-paid workers to have any job for which some employer will hire them. If you're willing to work for a low wage and someone is willing to hire you, the government has no business restricting this freedom. If your boss doesn't think you're currently worth the wage increase, that's what you will be earning: $0 an hour.

Think about it, and vote against I-151 in November.

Maria Folsom

Candidate for State Senate District 8

East Glacier