Now a bad
time to raise minimum wage
In reply to the Rev. John W. Cahill’s op-ed, “Stop subsidizing corporations” from the June 2 Enquirer: As a business owner I had to jump through many hoops before I could open my businesses, among them regulations, permit fees, licensing fees and many different taxes. With two businesses I had to hire lawyers and go to court to obtain the permit to operate. I then had to hire a bookkeeper to compute payroll, write quarterly reports, send reports to government regulatory agencies and keep records for income taxes. As it is very dangerous to hire employees and be in business, I had to purchase expensive liability insurance and hire a company lawyer whom I always had to use several times a year. Then with each employee I had to pay workers’ compensation, unemployment compensation, Social Security and other benefits. Each employee cost about $20 an hour, but the employee only received $10 an hour.
We must remember that once high wages and benefits were required for workers at Studebaker, Packard, Admiral TV, Muntz TV, Crosley and hundreds of other companies, and they are all gone now. General Motors required a government bailout of $11.2 billion. Once we paid high wages to those who made televisions, telephones, shoes and shirts, but all those jobs are gone. Almost everything that is sold at Wal-Mart is no longer made here.
It might not be a good time to raise minimum and low-wages pay, when 102 million – or 48 percent of working age Americans – cannot find jobs, and minimum wage starter jobs for teenagers are hard to find.
Everything that we legislate has unintended consequences. We must be careful.
William Schmidter, Indian Hill
In reply to the Rev. John W. Cahill’s op-ed, “Stop subsidizing corporations” from the June 2 Enquirer: As a business owner I had to jump through many hoops before I could open my businesses, among them regulations, permit fees, licensing fees and many different taxes. With two businesses I had to hire lawyers and go to court to obtain the permit to operate. I then had to hire a bookkeeper to compute payroll, write quarterly reports, send reports to government regulatory agencies and keep records for income taxes. As it is very dangerous to hire employees and be in business, I had to purchase expensive liability insurance and hire a company lawyer whom I always had to use several times a year. Then with each employee I had to pay workers’ compensation, unemployment compensation, Social Security and other benefits. Each employee cost about $20 an hour, but the employee only received $10 an hour.
We must remember that once high wages and benefits were required for workers at Studebaker, Packard, Admiral TV, Muntz TV, Crosley and hundreds of other companies, and they are all gone now. General Motors required a government bailout of $11.2 billion. Once we paid high wages to those who made televisions, telephones, shoes and shirts, but all those jobs are gone. Almost everything that is sold at Wal-Mart is no longer made here.
It might not be a good time to raise minimum and low-wages pay, when 102 million – or 48 percent of working age Americans – cannot find jobs, and minimum wage starter jobs for teenagers are hard to find.
Everything that we legislate has unintended consequences. We must be careful.
William Schmidter, Indian Hill
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