Democrats continue to push for a raise in the nation’s minimum wage even as reports indicate that the move can lead to an increase in crime and has triggered a “payroll tsunami” for businesses.
A new study has found “robust evidence” that property crime rates among teenagers and young adults were significantly increased by the hikes in the minimum wage, which is currently $7.25 an hour, Fox News reported.
With a “Fight for $15” rallying cry, House Democrats moved last month to advance a bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. But despite the built-in applause the left generates with the demands for a “living wage,” critics note the very serious consequences of the hikes on American neighborhoods.
“We find robust evidence that minimum wage hikes increase property crime arrests among teenagers and young adults ages 16-to-24, a population for whom minimum wages are likely to bind,” the National Bureau of Economic Research concluded in a new study.
An estimated $2.4 billion a year in property crime losses could result from the higher crime rates, the authors contend.
A former Tucson, Arizona police officer couldn’t agree more.
“There’s a direct correlation, when you have young folks competing for jobs, low-skilled workers are getting pushed out of the workforce,” Brandon Tatum told Fox News host Steve Doocy on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday. “And when you feel a sense of disenfranchisement, and you feel like you’re worthless to your community – you’re not contributing – then we see young people resort to crimes.”
He noted that “in a utopia” it “sounds wonderful” to raise the minimum wage and give young people more money so they can avoid getting trapped into a life of crime. But the reality, he pointed out, is that the companies that are hiring will do what they need to in order to meet their bottom line, including firing employees and automating services.
“It’s unfortunate that they believe that if you raise the minimum wage, it’s going to somehow have a positive effect. We have seen this historically have a negative effect on low skilled workers,” Tate argued, adding that the left is pushing these “fallacies” because they are only interested in getting the vote out and getting power.
The National Bureau of Economic Research report found evidence “that some affected younger workers turn to property crime, either due to excessive idleness or to replace their lost income. Higher minimum wages may, therefore, make some neighborhoods less safe,” according to The Washington Free Beacon.
Across the nation, as more states have moved toward a $15 minimum wage, business are dealing with the negative effects by cutting employee hours, eliminating jobs or completely closing down, Fox News reported. California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York and the District of Columbia have all approved a $15 minimum wage.
Ironically, minimum wage hikes are predicted to cost 261,000 jobs with many of them concentrated in New York and California, according to The American Action Forum.
“For some of these businesses, the minimum wage hikes tip the balance between staying in business and going out of business,” Panos Mourdoukoutas, professor of economics at LIU Post in New York, wrote in Forbes.
According to Fox News:
After winning her House race last year, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., “swung by” to say goodbye to the Coffee Shop in Union Square where she used to work.
She tweeted: “The restaurant I used to work at is closing its doors. I swung by today to say hi one last time, and kid around with friends like old times.”
What she didn’t say is that the popular coffee shop was closing its doors because it couldn’t afford the $15 minimum pay raise that Ocasio-Cortez has gone on to strongly support.
“The times have changed in our industry,” co-owner Charles Milite told The New York Post. “The rents are very high and now the minimum wage is going up and we have a huge number of employees.”
Maryland could lose 94,600 jobs according to the American Action Forum as it became the sixth state to approve a gradual minimum wage increase to $15 an hour last month.
“Going from a $7.25 an hour federal minimum wage to a $15 an hour minimum wage is, at best, a foolish policy proposal,” Education and Labor Committee ranking member, Rep. Virginia Foxx, said last month. “At worst, it’s an intentionally dishonest political stunt that promises bigger paychecks to hardworking Americans when in reality it would result in significant job losses for millions of hourly workers around the country.”
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.
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