NFIB's Mozloom: Mandatory Increase in Minimum Wage a 'Silly Proposition'

The issue of increasing the minimum wage has become a hot topic, with 20 states having recently acted on the issue, but a mandatory hike is a bad idea, Jack Mozloom, director of media and communications for the National Federation of Independent Business, told Newsmax TV.

"Everybody including our members supports higher wages for workers," he told the network's "MidPoint" program.

"The question is do you have the sales to support that? Not every business of every size can afford to pay their workers what Costco can pay or the Gap or Google," he said. "So it's kind of a silly proposition, the idea that every business everywhere should be forced to pay higher labor costs regardless of their individual business circumstances."

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The ramifications of a higher minimum wage aren't good, Mozloom said.

"The result is going to be fewer jobs. A preponderance of academic research on the subject connects higher minimum wages to higher unemployment rates, especially among the young and the unskilled."

President Barack Obama has proposed increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 from $7.25 currently, though Congress hasn't taken him up on it.

"Most of our members have fewer than 10 employees," Mozloom said. "They operate typically on very small margins, and the president at $10.10 an hour is proposing a 40 percent increase in the federal minimum wage."

He noted that San Francisco and Seattle have gone even higher. "But name the business that can count every year on a 40 percent increase in sales. You can't," Mozloom said.

"Most of our members already pay more than $7.25 an hour, some don't, and that's because they can't," he said.

"It's not because they want to exploit their workers, it's not because they don't like their workers, it's because they can't," he said. "When government seeks to force businesses to spend money they don't have, the result invariably is going to be cutbacks elsewhere."

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