From his blog:
Democrats love to trumpet increases in the "minimum wage," a move that polls well. However, when one state ups its minimum pay unilaterally, like Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich did, the consequences are lost jobs to other states.
Here's a real time example in today’s Daily Herald.Hoffman Estates-based Rely Services has a data-entry center in downstate Carlinville, which for years held state contracts to manually input tax and vehicle data.
But in bidding to keep those contracts, the company was undercut, in part, its officials say, because out-of-state firms can pay their employees a lower minimum wage. As a result, the center that at its peak employs 134 will see its workforce plummet to 14 on Monday.
"It’s been a pretty sad day," production manager Brenda Witt told the Daily Herald last week as employees were finishing their final days at work.
The work those employees had done now will be handled by firms based in North Carolina, Michigan and Indiana, all of which have lower minimum wages than Illinois.
I’d be interested in a rebuttal from an Illinois Democrat on how this law is good for the more than 100 employees who won’t be working at Rely Services any more.
Catch the irony here. The downstate data entry jobs, which involve processing State of Illinois paperwork, will be sent out of Illinois because of our new minimum wage law.
Carlinville is not in a prosperous part of the Prairie State.
Now we move on to Wisconsin. Corporations love to pit one state against another in order win subsidies to move into a state, expand its operation there, or to just stay.
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel investigating Wisconsin's record in business aid, and it wasn't impressed:
Wisconsin distributes millions of dollars of taxpayer money to companies each year to encourage economic growth and job creation. But the state fails to track subsidies to see whether they work.
More...
• About 40% of the jobs companies agreed to create for their subsidies do not currently exist.
• The state spent nearly $17,000 per new job, 70% more than the state's own guideline for an acceptable subsidy.
• When companies do report lower job totals, the state often adjusts its requirements for job creation downward rather than cancel subsidies or seek repayment.
The next time Governor Rod Blagojevich, or Wisconsn's Governor Jim Doyle pound their chests over "job creation" or a higher state minimum wage, remember that the truth is not that simple.
Both Doyle and Blagojevich are Democrats, and for that matter, so is Jennifer Granholm, Michigan's governor.
Related post:
Google office with tax breaks opens in budget challenged Michigan
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