Help Not Affordable

I just read the news about the House of the U.S. Congress approving a proposed minimum wage hike, which I relayed to my business partner.

In the last few days, the return of WSU students to the area has seen a rush of job seekers visiting our shop to inquire about employment. Our standard response has been, "sorry, but we're not hiring right now."

Washington state's minimum wage, now $7.93 per hour, is ahead of the proposed Federal wage hike, so the Federal increase won't affect us that much. But this news has brought to mind again the business climate we face in this state, and today's announcement prompted my business partner and I to decide on a new policy of 100% honesty toward job applicants.

We will now tell each and every person who inquires about employment with our companies that the increases in the minimum wage have made hiring them too expensive, that we would have considered their applications in the past but, thanks to Olympia, now we simply cannot and will not. We will make it perfectly clear to job seekers at our store what hikes in the minimum wage really mean for them and others.

To business owners out there who may be reading this post, I encourage you to do the same if you will be curtailing hiring due to minimum wage hikes. Let's be completely honest with job seekers about what they are going to be facing. It's only fair that we tell each and every applicant why it is that we will not offer them jobs. Perhaps then, the next time some politico tries to buy votes by promising to redistribute other people's money, they will find their offers met with the hostility and rejection such theft deserves.