By Bryan Darge
An article on the Chicago Tribune web site has just come up and it looks like the city aldermen are playing economics vs playing politics. Actually, they are playing politics with economics.
According to the article the city council is going to look into the issue of mandating the minimum wage at $10 per hour plus $3 per hour more for other perks. But only on big box stores of 75,000 square feet or more. They are actually considering taking this up for a vote.
Does the city of Chicago have no shame? Where are the real issues Chicago needs to face? Can’t the city be allowed to recover from the loss of their foie gras?
The article cites the president of the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, David Vite, stating that one company is backing off of their plans to open a 78,000 square foot store in the city, which would provide 240 jobs, until the city of Chicago has this issue resolved. There really is nothing to stop them from putting up a fake wall and reducing it down to, say 74,500 square feet, but who knows, on the face of it there are so many ways around this law it just becomes silly.
Some do not think it has a chance of holding up in court, others do. At least we can count on Ald. Mitts who has her wits about her on this issue at least. She seems to have remembered her days of basic economics as she says that it would drive business away. Not only will it keep new business away, what’s to say it won’t shut others down. One way for these big box retail stores to continue to make their margins is to lay people off.
The economic snow ball affect of this issue in and of itself should shelve the issue for good. Loosing jobs not only hurts the individual, it hurts the city, state, and country as taxable income will be lost, not to mention the cost of their unemployment on top of this loss. The loss doesn’t stop there either. The city will have to forego the revenue of every day people who will be forced to stand in longer and longer queues waiting to check out instead of engaging in revenue generating activity continuing the loss for Chicago. One could envision these lines getting so long that people will stop shopping all together, in Chicago, further decreasing taxable profits for the city.
Forcing large box retail stores to pay their employees a set minimum wage has the potential to cause huge budget deficits, forgone taxable income, long lines, the problem can really get out of control. When will the alderman of Chicago ever learn to their economics lessons? Better yet, when are they going to stick with the real issues facing Chicago, like politics.
