Amendment 5 could help Kerry in Florida

[ringmastery]

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/07/31/Columns/Democrats_hang_hats_o.shtml

Tony Hill calls it "the silver bullet" for Florida Democrats.

Could it also be John Kerry's secret weapon?

It is Amendment 5, a proposal to increase the minimum wage Florida by $1, to $6.15 an hour, and tie annual increases to inflation. It will be on the Nov. 2 ballot as a constitutional amendment.

Democrats see it as a way to help the working poor while driving thousands of liberal voters to the polls at the same time.

Do the math, and the politics.

For a struggling single mother working a cash register in a convenience store, it's a pay raise of $40 a week.

For Kerry, it could mean another vote from someone who might otherwise stay home on Election Day.

The prospect of a raise might do it.

"This is a kitchen table issue," says Hill, a Jacksonville Democratic state senator.

[Bucky]

1. Raising local & state minimum wages is a bad move

It's better handled on the federal level. Otherwise you're just going to drive business away to other communities or encourage local retailers to hire fewer workers. It's better to have a policy that raises the value of the work thru education, growth & hiring incentives, and good old fashioned trade unionism. A rising tide doesn't raise boats on a taut anchor.

[sandnsea]

2. Oh nonsense

There's no correlation between unemployment rates and minimum wage. Oregon has a $7.05 minimum wage, Michigan is $5.15. Massachusetts is $6.15, PA is $5.15. Unemployment rates have nothing to do with minimum wage.

Here's a map of minimum wages and link to unemployment rates to compare.

http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm

http://stats.bls.gov/eag/eag.MA.htm

[xcmt]

4. Technically Correct

Unemployment and a minimum wage have a correlation if it's a country-wide Federal mandate. But you can't really look at it on a regional level because of 1) population flux, and 2) regional cost of living. I'd bet living in Massachusetts is way more expensive than Michigan or Pennsylvania.

I'm also unsure about whether the minimum wage issue is so Democrat-focused in Florida. I've spent some time down there, and the general impression I have is that the poorest segment of the (non-immigrant) population lives in the rural areas, which is generally Bush country. Immigrants also apparently have a tendency towards siding with Republicans, in Florida, for reasons I'm not sure I understand yet.

[sandnsea]

6. Here's the deal

For 20 years they've been telling us labor is what drives business decisions and costs. Labor is too expensive. Minimum wage hurts business. They go overseas. Do prices ever go down? No. You might want to point to computers. That's something I know about. The price of computer parts was always low. The profit used to be terrific. Corporate America rolled out computers as a product for the elite first. It was great for local computer builders. Then they dropped prices for the mainstream and made their profit in bulk sales. Guess what? The parts always came from China, Taiwan and similar places. The US parts are for high end systems for the military and the like.

When labor costs go down, the profits go to stockholders. Or business owners. That's the only thing that's changed since the 1960's and 70's. That's what is driving income disparity in this country.

Any state that can boost their minimum wage is doing a good thing for everybody.

[xcmt]

7. A better example.

Sneakers. When was the last time you paid less than $80 for some newly-released Nikes?

The south-Asian teenager that made one pair probably earned a whole dollar that day.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

3. I disagree..no one is gonna chase WalMart out of Fla and if they do

then that's even better.

[RodneyCK2]

5. Great post... this is good news and...

I agree with the minimum wage raise.