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Minimum-wage hike: OK, but not all at once

Phasing in increases is better for business.

The inability of the U.S. Congress to agree on a change in the federal minimum wage, set at $7.25 an hour, has resulted in a mishmash of increases by states and municipalities in the past few years. Seattle has a newly approved $15-an-hour minimum; Minnesota will be at $9.50 per hour by 2016; Connecticut will be $10.10 by 2017. There are similar efforts in Santa Fe and Alberquerque, N.M.; San Francisco and San Jose, Calif.; the District of Columbia; and two Maryland counties.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed a $10.10 hourly wage for New York state, with localities allowed to increase that by 30%, to $13.13. Some New York lawmakers have called for a $15 wage floor for chain restaurants having more than 11 locations nationwide. At the moment, New York state's minimum is $8 an hour; it will increase to $8.75 at the end of this year and go to $9 by the end of 2015.

The debate over the minimum wage is intense and complicated. It can take a Ph.D. in economics to begin to understand and participate in this discussion. It is way beyond me. (The only college course I failed was the second semester of Econ 101 in 1970.)

There are studies that show that raising the minimum wage will result in fewer jobs because employers will cut their payrolls and demand more from their laborers. There are studies that refute this by showing that the states that have increased the federal minimum have actually seen increases in employment.

One of the main opponents of increasing the minimum wage is the restaurant industry. Restaurants employ many unskilled workers, and they also pay waiters and bartenders who make money through tips, which may or may not be shared with other staff. So the actual pay of many restaurant workers is variable and complicated to calculate.

My company brews and sells beer, and we start unskilled workers at a much higher wage than the minimum because we want to train and retain reliable workers. I talked to some of my restaurant customers in New York City. They said they pay more than $10 an hour to their unskilled workers because that ensures they'll show up for work on a regular basis and take some pride in their jobs.

The minimum wage was established in 1938, as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's pitch to Congress declared that America should be able to provide its workers "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work." It does not seem that the divided Congress of 2014 will ever agree on what constitutes a fair day's pay, so I expect more and more localities to set their own standard hourly pay scales.

In New York City, $320 for a 40-hour workweek seems far from a fair day's pay. It seems to me that an increase to more than $10 an hour is coming. If I were running a pizza parlor and paying dishwashers and clerks $8 an hour, I would ask Mr. Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio to give me some warning before hiking the minimum wage.

Phase in any increase over a few years. Don't spring it on me.
