Raising the minimum wage won't help

[Rev. Rye]

When the government implemented tougher rules some years ago requiring more employers to provide health insurance for full-time employees, a whole BUNCH of people around here had their hours cut to 32 hours per week so the employers wouldn't have to pay for their health insurance.   Years later, those places (grocery store Food Lion comes to mind) STILL don't hire 40 hour per week employees.  Many of those same employees had to take on second jobs to make ends meet.  And in more skilled careers where hours were cut to 32 per week an awful lot of THOSE *salaried* employees were (and still are) required to still get 40 hours worth of work done in 32 hours.

And lets not forget the fact that employers have to pay for unemployment insurance and worker's comp insurance and contribute to their social security and Medicare for each employee.  An increase of min wg to $15 per hour will cause many employers to cut staff, do less hiring in the future, and set impossible expectations of workload for the employees they keep around.

So, raising the minimum wage is bad because some employers are going to skirt the law so they don't have to actually follow it. Got it.