With Albany ready to hike the state’s minimum wage, there’s only one thing left to do: Call in Nicholas Garaufis.
Judge Garaufis, recall, ruled that FDNY exams were discriminatory because African-Americans failed them at a greater rate than whites. Well, the evidence is at least as strong that a minimum-wage hike will hurt young, less-educated blacks more than whites.
As The Post noted yesterday, two economists found that for each 10 percent hike in the minimum wage, employment falls 2.5 percent for young whites lacking a high-school diploma — against 6.5 percent for young blacks of similar education.
Albany plans to bump the minimum wage to $9 from $7.25 — or 24 percent. By the economists’ measure, that means employment will fall 6 percent for young whites, but 15 percent for blacks.
What more does Garaufis need? His ruling against the FDNY was based mostly on numbers, not evidence of actual bias. He relied in part on a provision in the Civil Rights Act declaring illegal any “facially neutral practice that has the effect of disproportionately excluding members of a particular protected group.”
Plainly, the effect on blacks of a boost in the minimum wage more than fits that definition. And it’s not a new discovery. The 1931 Davis Bacon Act, which set wage levels for federal projects, drew support from white unions hoping to keep non-unionized blacks from taking their jobs.
Now, we’re not fans of either the suit against the FDNY or Garaufis’ ruling. But if that’s going to be the standard, why isn’t the New York Civil Liberties Union suing on the grounds of the blatantly disparate impact of any minimum-wage hike?