nothin Markley-Winfield: Is $10.10 Enough? | New Haven Independent

Markley-Winfield: Is $10.10 Enough?

Paul Bass Photos

Tea Party Republican Joe Markley and urban Democrat Gary Winfield found themselves disagreeing on something: the minimum wage.

Appearing on the latest edition of WNHH radio’s Dateline New Haven,” Southington State Sen. Markley (left photo above) and New Haven State Sen. Winfield (right) as usual, were finding common ground — in this case about how Democrats and Republicans both too quickly blame each other for decisions by companies to leave or locate in the state rather than address underlying issues.

Click on the audio file above to hear the entire program, here to check in on their previous encounter.

The minimum wage discussion grew out of debate over whether Republicans like Markley have been a Rooting for Fairness Club” in slamming the state’s economic performance, or whether Connecticut’s ruling Democrats have in fact killed jobs with their policies. Markley cited Connecticut’s decisions to raise the minimum wage to a high” $10.10 an hour by 2017 and to institute paid sick leave as proof of the latter. Pro-labor activists have been pushing for states around the country now to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Markley was asked if it’s worth trying to create jobs if they don’t pay enough for people to live on or afford health care. The discussion proceeded as follows:

Markley: That’s a problem everywhere. And I think it’s a problem that is not going to be solved by paying people more. … $10.10’s not going to work and $15 isn’t going to work either [to cover insurance]. But you’ve got to at least have jobs. We’re in a city here … I think New Haven’s a great city. But the unemployment of young people is fantastic[ally high]. There has to be some opportunity created for them … At least it’s a start. „, If it’s $9 an hour even.

Winfield: Where are you going to live? You can’t afford to live [on $10.10 an hour]. Forget about health care for a second. Let’s say you forgo health care because you just want to live … You’re healthy, you’re young. Where are you going to live? You’re in Connecticut. It costs. When we have conversations about minimum wage in Connecticut, they often go off the rail. You have people talk about what a great experience that they had when they were younger. How it taught them the value of a dollar. What I’m actually looking at in the community I represent, I’m not looking at people who are just out there to have their first experience working. I’m looking at people who have to support a family now, whatever the bottom line is in terms of compensation for jobs. And that’s minimum wage. If you have to support a family on that, I don’t know how they do it.

The conversation has to be reflective of the reality in which we live … It’s kind of disappointing. What we’re talking about — it’s kind of fantasy: I would have worked for free.” We’ve heard that in those discussions. These people can’t work for free. You have young people sometimes who aren’t working to have their first summer jobs. They’re working to supplement their parents who aren’t earning enough so that the whole family can make it.

Markley: The fantasy on the other side, though, is to say that government is coming in with a magic wand and saying, Let’s pay people $15 an hour, and those jobs will be there.” These jobs are going to disappear if you do that.

WNHH: The evidence has been [mixed on whether minimum wage jobs actually do lead to fewer jobs] …

Markley: We’re going to have evidence from the fact that his has been done in Seattle and California … even a liberal economist, even [Democratic State Rep.] Peter Tercyak, when we were debating this in the Labor Committee, admitted that a certain number of jobs aren’t going to be created that would have been created without a minimum wage [hike]. How do you get salaries up? You don’t get salaries up by getting government to pass laws about what salaries should be. It’s always going to end up distorting the system…. You need to have demand. You need to have employers who want to hire people who say, I can’t get anybody for $9 an hour” or I can’t get the kind of person I need for $9 an hour. I need to pay more”…

Winfield: How do you get demand if I can’t consume?

WNHH: That’s the Henry Ford model right? He paid people more so they could afford to buy his cars. And he kept the prices down.

Markley: Yeah. Of course his people were living in a company town. Every dollar he gave them came back to him in rent and food and everything else, let alone the cars. That’s maybe not a model that any of us would be comfortable with …

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