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Gov. Christie is a 'no' on N.J. minimum wage increase

Friday, 08 June 2012 11:45
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NJDollars030911_optSays it will lead to company layoffs

BY GINA G. SCALA
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Raising the minimum wage in New Jersey seems a no brainer in an economy that starts and stalls regularly and in a state where the unemployment rate has been above the national average for the past year.

But Republican Gov. Chris Christie isn’t convinced increasing the minimum wage will have the positive impact all are hoping economic growth will achieve and has said he will reject a bill to increase the minimum wage.

“We’re telling small business owners that not only are we going to raise their costs by a buck and a quarter, but we’re also going to raise it with these cost-of-living adjustments,” Christie said during a town-hall meeting in Lyndhurst. “Here’s what’s going to happen -- they’re going to have to lay people off.”

In May, the Democratic-held Assembly passed a bill to increase minimum rage by $1.25; from $7.25 to $8.50. It’s pending in the Senate, also a Democrat stronghold.

Christie said a minimum-wage increase, and automatic raises each year tied to the U.S. consumer price index, would jeopardize the economic turnaround.

"I do not believe it's going to shut down businesses overnight," Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) said last month. "I do not believe that businesses are going to flee our state. ... There are now more than 2.2 million people living in poverty in New Jersey, and we have an obligation to do something about it."

But Stefanie Riehl, assistant vice president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, sees the issue differently.

"Unfortunately, legislation raising the minimum wage does not increase the sales and revenues that businesses would need to pay higher wages,” she said in a statement, The Star Ledger reported. “Sales are not rising fast enough to accommodate forced wage hikes, employers will be forced to make tough personnel and operating decisions, such as reducing workers' hours or cutting other costs."

In December 2011, the state’s Minimum Wage Advisory Commission voted 3-2 to recommend the wage remain at its current rate for the year.


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