This Election Day, New Jersey finds itself threatened by something that could end up inflicting more long-term damage on the state than Superstorm Sandy.
We’re talking about a ballot initiative that would not only raise the state’s minimum wage but enshrine it — and automatic increases — in the state constitution.
Those pushing the initiative claim it as an aid to families.
“It’s a shame that people have to work two, sometimes three jobs in order to feed their families, to pay their rents and mortgages,” said Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise at a rally on Tuesday. “You would think Gov. Christie would do something for the little guy rather than the big guy and endorse this.”
In fact, the governor is doing something for the little guy: He’s opposing this very bad ballot initiative.
As Christie appreciates, the reality of minimum wage is that few earning it are supporting families. Most are part-timers, or students, or retired people picking up spare cash.
The likeliest impact of jacking up Jersey’s minimum wage will be to make it even harder for, say, a black teenager in Newark or Camden to find a job. As economist Tom Sowell pointed out in a recent column on these pages, minimum-wage laws were used in South Africa during apartheid “to keep black workers from taking jobs from white unionized workers.”
Let’s hope New Jersey voters recognize that in a state where the unemployment rate is more than a full point above the national average, you are not going to create more jobs by making it even more expensive to hire workers.