IFF: Stop minimum wage hike tries

Executive Wayne Hoffman of the Idaho Freedom Foundation opposes the right of Idaho cities to raise its own minimum wage:

Voters in McCall were wise on Tuesday to reject a minimum wage increase. But the fight on this issue isn’t over yet. Advocates for this absurd policy are likely to keep pressing local governments—or their voters—to say yes. Eventually, there will be some kind of piecemeal win, unless lawmakers put a stop to the madness.

The McCall measure fell 53 to 47 percent, and that was astonishing. Some of my friends in the community thought that too many local business owners, who would have been stuck with the bill, lived outside city limits. The McCall proposal called for an eventual 41 percent increase in the minimum wage, to $10.25 an hour, maybe that gave voters pause. Or perhaps they were taken aback by the regulatory powers McCall city government would have been granted to enforce the proposal.

Or maybe voters figured out that minimum wage increases aren’t the panacea their protagonists pretend them to be. For example, in Seattle the minimum wage is being phased upward to $15 an hour; there, the Washington Policy Center recently noted, the city is losing restaurant jobs — while the rest of the state is gaining them. Predictably, some business owners look to replace employees with automation.

Cities and other local governments in Idaho shouldn’t be setting their own minimum wages at all. More here.

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Question: Should an Idaho city have the right to raise its minimum wage?