Minimum wage hike backfires

I posted a column earlier this year about how the minimum wage increase in Pennsylvania was cited by the owner of a Boyertown restaurant as one of the reasons she decided to go out of business, sending 85 workers to the unemployment line.

One of those know-it-all liberals from the Lehigh Valley quickly posted a response to the column saying one isolated incident doesn't prove the minimum wage hike was a mistake.

I'd like to direct my Lehigh Valley pal to new survey results released by The Lincoln Institute that found that Pennsylvania's business climate has declined in the past six months.

And what has been the biggest impact on the state's economy in the past six months? The minimum wage increase pushed by Gov. Ed Rendell and the Democrats in the Legislature.

"As predicted by many business groups Pennsylvania employers are reacting to the recent increase in the state's minimum wage by hiring fewer unskilled workers, not hiring new employees and even reducing the number of people they employ," according to the Lincoln Institute's Spring 2007 Keystone Business Climate Survey.

To read the survey results, go to http://www.lincolninstitute.org/

You can also read a summary of Pennsylvania's declining business climate under Gov. Rendell in an op-ed piece by the Lincoln Institute's Lowman Henry posted at the Commonwealth Foundation Web site, http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/

It appears I was right once again. It appears the liberals were wrong once again. And of course, the national Democrats in Washington are working on raising the minimum wage so they can damage the economy in all 50 states.

The minimum wage increase by Rendell and the Democratic lemmings in the state Legislature was an election-year ploy to distract voters from the fact that Rendell and his lockstep Democrats failed to address property tax relief for the fourth year in a row. It was political pandering at its worst.

The Democrats got enough of a boost with their "feel-good" legislation to take the November election. Pennsylvania workers are now paying the price ... on the unemployment line.