My company, Progressive Business Publications, has been in business for about six years. Today, we provide about 600 full-time seasonal jobs, mostly for college students - double what we had just two years ago. We currently operate 12 offices throughout the greater Philadelphia area - six permanent offices and six summer offices. Eleven of those offices are located in Pennsylvania, one in Delaware.
Two summers ago, we wanted to expand by opening two offices in South Jersey, which would have provided more than 100 jobs for young people. Although they would have started out as summer offices, at least one would probably have become permanent, providing a base for further expansion.
But New Jersey state law mandates a higher minimum wage ($5.05). So we decided to open those new offices in Pennsylvania instead. The bottom line: New Jersey lost jobs, Pennsylvania gained them.
Supporters of raising the minimum wage argue that you can't raise a family on $4.25 per hour. That's true, but they're missing the point. The vast majority of minimum-wage earners are young people starting their first job. Raise the minimum wage and you saw off the first rung on the job ladder - a rung that is especially crucial to workers with few skills who could not be profitably employed at higher wage levels.
The fact is, most of our employees earn far more than the minimum wage. We offer a set of incentives that help build a good work ethic in young workers and enhance our productivity. For instance, if our employees arrive at work on time every day, they receive another 25 cents per hour. If they fulfill their commitment to work 10 weeks, they get another 50 cents per hour. Additional objective performance bonuses can add an additional $6.50 per hour to their base salary.
Arriving on time, fulfilling commitments, striving for exceptional levels of achievement. Those habits may seem profitable for my employees now, but they will pay off a hundred-fold over the course of a career.
