The strangest thing just happened!
A Democrat alderman from St. Louis who is also a #BlackLivesMatter supporter has actually come out publicly AGAINST raising the minimum wage in his city.
St. Louis alderman are voting on the wage hike today (Friday) to raise the minimum wage to $11 by 2018, well above the state mandated wage of $7.65.
But in an op-ed written for St. Louis American, Alderman Antonio D. French came out firmly against the wage hike:
The City of St. Louis is in no economic position to raise our minimum wage alone and not expect big economic consequences in the years to come.
St. Louis city has the highest rate of concentrated poverty in the region. That poverty is driven by high unemployment, not low wages. There are more people in St. Louis city that have no job at all than work for the current minimum wage. In addition to unemployed workers, we have the highest rate of low-skill workers.
We aren’t in any economic position to tell an employer that $10 an hour isn’t good enough to pay an entry-level employee, when they can just go down the street and start at $8 or $9. Not to mention if they open in St. Louis County they don’t have to pay the 1 percent earnings tax or deal with many of the other perceived heartaches about owning a business in St. Louis city.
The City of St. Louis finds itself in the position we’re in today (high unemployment, high percentage of vacant buildings, bleeding population) because of a lot of bad decisions made over the years. Some of those decisions were very popular at the time.
But I don’t work as hard as I do rebuilding my community and this city only to have to pander and vote for something I know to be harmful in the long run. I didn’t go to business school and take on $100,000 in student debt for an MBA to now pretend I don’t understand economics and incentives.
