Organization favors exclusion of $15 minimum wage in state budget

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) recently released a statement applauding the exclusion of Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed phased-in $15 minimum wage from the 2019-2020 state budget.

“Without government intervention, the marketplace is already producing good, higher-paying jobs, and there are many current openings,” Gordon Denlinger, NFIB Pennsylvania state director, said. “All policymakers need to do is make sure low-skilled workers get the needed training to be able to fill those vacancies. Already the number of Pennsylvanian’s in the workforce making minimum wage has dropped by half in the last five years, and now only 1.6 percent of all workers make minimum wage, most of them are young, unmarried, people.”

A $15 minimum wage would cause 34,000 entry-level jobs to disappear, according to the state’s Independent Fiscal Office. These individuals would lose their jobs or have their hours cut, NFIB said.

Teenagers, recently released prisoners, and senior citizens seeking supplemental jobs would be the people impacted the most by a change in minimum wage, Denlinger said. Workforce training initiatives are the best way to raise wages, he said.

The NFIB looks forward to seeing how lawmakers solve the labor shortage, Denlinger said.

NFIB has more than 12,500 members in Pennsylvania.