Submitted photo: Assemblyman Steve Hawley (R,C,I-Batavia) [second from left] joins members of the Assembly Minority Conference to call for alternatives to a $15-per-hour minimum wage increase.
Press release:
Following a press conference held by Assembly Minority Leader Brian M. Kolb (R,C-Canandaigua), Assemblyman Steve Hawley (R,C,I-Batavia) has denounced the governor’s plan to raise New York’s minimum wage to $15 per hour, citing the devastating impact on small businesses and other job creators.
“As a four-decade small-business owner and one who has grown his company from the ground up, I know what we need to jumpstart New York’s stagnant business climate, and a 67-percent minimum wage increase will not work,” Hawley said.
“I understand that there are many working poor in our state who are doing everything they can to get by on the current minimum wage, but the consequences of this sharp increase would have the reverse of its intention: causing hundreds of thousands of jobs to be eliminated, companies to move out of state, and consumer prices to increase.”
Hawley proposed several solutions that would help the working poor directly without hindering small businesses or adversely affecting jobs.
“I understand that there are many New Yorkers living paycheck to paycheck and I want to help them, too,” Hawley said. “I sponsor A.9102, which would expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which hasn’t been adjusted in 12 years.
"This is estimated to introduce more than 14,000 New Yorkers into the workforce without damaging our business community. I also sponsor, A.7486, which would allow the EITC to be distributed in installment payments to help the working poor with monthly expenses.”
I have a suggestion, in
I have a suggestion, in alternative to pushing the minimum wage to $15.hr, make all workers who earn $15 and less exempt from any income tax [State and Federal]. Since the government would never approve because of the tax revenue it would loose... make the employers of all workers, who they pay $15/hr or less, pay the employee's income tax.
I wonder how many businesses whose owners are making $150-200k or more per year, have employees that don't earn $15/hr? [Sport Of Kings, Settler's, Miner's, Manor House, Hawley's Insurance, are some that come to question???]
That does not sound very
That does not sound very Libertarian. Why should an employer be forced to pay somebody else's tax? Should there even be a minimum wage?
Libertarian government is not
Libertarian government is not here yet. Besides employers already pay part of the tax burden [SS and Medicare] for each employee... so what's a few more taxes among friends. Is it Libertarian for a business owner to make 10 to 20 times the money that the workers who make that business run, receive? Is it Libertarian for workers to form a union?