What, exactly, do Manhat tan Borough President Scott Stringer, city Comp troller John Liu, Bronx BP Ruben Diaz and 28 City Council members have against poor, young immigrants and blacks?
Not satisfied that demands for a “living wage” cost The Bronx 2,200 jobs last year, these zealots want to take their job-thwarting efforts citywide. Two bills now in the council would do the trick. Poor, young minorities would suffer most. And Stringer, Liu and Diaz, in particular, are doing everything possible to make sure that happens.
This week, the three moved (unsuccessfully) to squash a city-commissioned study, fearing it might reveal the legislation’s toll, particularly on poor minorities. That came on the heels of a “report” by a union-front group tarring the still-incomplete city study as “biased.”
Obviously, they’re determined to clear a path for the legislation’s passage, perhaps early next year.
How would the bills hurt workers? One would force businesses that get city subsidies to pay at least $10 an hour — 38 percent over minimum wage — plus $1.50 an hour in benefits. (The other requires landlords who get rental fees or other payments from the city to pay a “prevailing wage” — likely even more than $10.)
Of course, such pay sounds great for employees. But, in effect, it would steal the city aid from their bosses — and without that help, some businesses would never get off the ground.
Meaning no jobs, at any wage.
Witness last year’s tragedy in The Bronx. A developer offered to build a $300 million mall at the Kingsbridge Armory, using $50 million in tax subsidies, but balked at Diaz’s demand that all future jobs there pay $10 an hour or more, which would have made the project uneconomical. So Diaz got council members to nix the project. And goodbye 2,200 jobs.
Diaz, who Gov.-elect Cuomo tapped for his transition team yesterday, was delighted that folks would go jobless, even as unemployment in The Bronx was 13.1 percent. “The notion that any job is better than no job no longer applies,” he boasted. Then again, he had a job; as for everyone else, well, New York has a generous safety net, doesn’t it?
After his “victory,” Diaz made two vows: He’d bring $10-an-hour-or-more jobs to The Bronx. And, he’d take his high-wage, no-job scheme citywide.
Today? Unemployment in The Bronx has edged up, to 13.2 percent. Racoons reportedly have the run of the Armory. (Literally.)
But Diaz is working feverishly on his other vow — to make the rest of New York suffer similarly. In May, he launched his “Living Wage” drive, getting two council members to introduce legislation.
Great timing: Construction starts this year are on pace to be the lowest citywide since 1994, when data first began to be tracked; unemployment is at 9.3 percent.
Even non-economists know that when something — even labor — costs more, people buy less of it; higher wages mean fewer jobs.
But the cruelest irony is that the bills likely would most hurt the poor, minorities and immigrants, because they’re the ones whose jobs would disappear first.
Mountains of research on wage floors back that. Milton Friedman called the minimum wage the most “anti-black law” on the books. Even the left-leaning New York Times once agreed; a 1987 editorial warned that when lawmakers “raise the legal minimum price of labor above the productivity of the least skilled workers,” fewer are hired.
“Those at greatest risk,” it said, “would be young, poor workers, who already face formidable barriers.”
And the council’s mandates would far surpass the federal and state minimum wage.
Of course, unions (whose members have jobs) don’t care. They push dupes like Stringer, Liu and Diaz to force up rates — and never mind the out-of-work young black man or Hispanic immigrant who can no longer afford to be hired.
Mayor Bloomberg would likely veto Diaz’s “Living Wage” bill, and its 28 backers aren’t enough for an override.
But don’t expect cynics like Stringer, Liu and Diaz to stand down.
Not, at least, until every New Yorker is out of work. abrodsky@nypost.com