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By THE NEW MEXICAN
March 25, 2007
The New Mexico Legislature's approval of a statewide $7.50
minimum wage is one more message to Congress: The federal $5.15 an hour is
nowhere near enough to live on; now that Democrats narrowly rule both houses,
it's time for a raise.
In Santa
Fe, where then-councilors Jimmie Martínez and
Frank Montaño led a long-ago
"living-wage" crusade, minimum pay is $9.50 an hour -- up since
last year from $8.50, where it started in 2004. According to the ordinance
making that possible, $10.50 could be the next step -- if the City Council
approves it this year to take effect in 2008.
That, we think, is a step too far.
It would work out to a little more than $20,000 a year for full-time workers
-- and in home-pricey Santa Fe, that's not much even if Mom and
Dad both hold minimum-wage jobs.
But at twice the going federal rate, $10.50 could be the proverbial straw --
and the City Council should stay its hand before camels' backs are broken,
and fewer people get to ride in the "living wage" caravan.
Most Santa Fe businesses here for the long haul
care deeply about their employees and the community. They want those workers
earning a real living, so they pay what their earnings allow. They also want
to reward and retain their longer-term employees, and pay raises are an
effective way to do it.
Should the City Council, having met a real need with the early steps of the
living-wage ordinance, be able to command employers to give proportionately
more to their newest, least experienced workers -- or should City Hall trust
businesses to reward their most valuable employees?
Employers already are finding that $9.50 is too much to pay for certain kinds
of tasks -- so do they decide not to hire new people to do it, and boost the
work burden on employees already on board?
Many of those employees have taken years to work up to the $9/$10-an-hour
level, so there's always been a question of fairness to them. Do their wages
get raised in proportion to those hired on at Santa Fe's new minimum wage? In some cases,
perhaps -- but the chain reaction could choke most businesses, push some into
outsourcing, or send some of them fleeing the city limits for places where
even the impending $7.50 wage is more manageable than $10.50.
According to last year's study by The University of New Mexico's Bureau of
Business and Economic Research, overall employment levels here hadn't been
affected by the living-wage ordinance.
But is that owing to overall economic growth in prosperous-if-not-booming Santa Fe? Growth that might be masking
moved-out or closed businesses?
What about the cost of living? Are those upward-creeping food prices, in
stores and restaurants, hitting lower-earning families? Tourists, bless 'em, aren't likely to flinch when they look at our menus
-- but are local folks going out to eat less frequently in the face of
stiffer dinner tabs?
Two bucks an hour over the new state minimum, and more than four over the
federal level, is a tough pill being swallowed in relative calm by the
business community of this city definitely different. The City Council should
prepare to hold the line at $9.50.
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