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Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Little negative effect seen from Pa.'s higher minimum wage

When Pennsylvania boosted the minimum wage twice in 2007, restaurants, retailers and other business interests groaned.

A report issued this week by the state’s Minimum Wage Advisory Board shows why they were worried. Businesses in the leisure, hospitality and retail trade sectors employed two-thirds of all of those making minimum wage in 2007.

Business owners complained that increasing the minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.15 per hour would raise their costs, forcing them to cut workers.

The increase directly affected 132,800 Pennsylvania workers, or about 4 percent who earn an hourly wage, the advisory board said.

It cited census statistics showing a less than 1 percent decline in employment in retail trade and manufacturing shortly after the two wage hikes. However, employment in leisure and hospitality rose by less than 1 percent during the same time period.

So call it a wash.

Any worry that Pennsylvania is less competitive with the higher wage will be moot as the federal minimum wage rises from $5.85 to $6.55 on July 24 and to $7.25 in July 2009.

More people-y

The “chief people officer” title keeps marching on.

The Philadelphia area started seeing companies adopting it during the dot-com era for the executive in charge of human resources. But it’s not just a Silicon Valley invention. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is probably the biggest proponent of the chief people officer.

Type “chief people officer” into the Securities and Exchange Commission’s database and you’ll turn up dozens of companies using the term.

Some companies say giving the head of human resources the new title signals that employees have as much importance to the chief people officer as finance does to the chief financial officer.

Hershey Co. named Charlene H. Binder to that title Tuesday. She replaces the retired Marcella K. Arline, who became Hershey’s first CPO in June 2004.

Posted by Mike Armstrong @ 6:00 AM  Permalink | 1 comment
Comments   
Posted 07:32 PM, 03/05/2008
Learned_Foot
It may be true that businesses have not had to cut workers in any substantial way (yet), but to write that the minimum wage law has had "little negative effect" is misleading and reflects a poor understanding of economics. Putting that aside, minimum wage laws amount to theft. And stealing -- even if it's authorized by the government -- is just wrong.
1 comments
About Mike Armstrong
Mike Armstrong, a business editor and writer for nearly two decades, is the Inquirer's business columnist and PhillyInc blog editor.
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