In fact, the biggest low-wage employers include billion-dollar fast food and retail chains, not small businesses.
Since 1916, opponents have cried ''the sky is falling" every time the minimum wage was increased.Yet business keeps growing. Princeton economist David Card found California's employment actually rose after our 1988 minimum wage increase.
Since 1988, corporate CEO pay has more than doubled. Corporate profits have skyrocketed. But California's minimum wage has not increased even once.
Because of inflation, the minimum wage buys less now than at any time in the past 40 years. We're on the wrong track when hard work pays less than welfare. Proposition 210 rewards work by making it more profitable than welfare.
Congressional proposals are inadequate. The proposed federal minimum wage still leaves a California family of three $2,300 a year below the poverty line. Proposition 210 raises this family much closer to the poverty line. California's cost of living is higher than states like Mississippi. We need a higher minimum wage.
California has the lowest minimum wage on the West Coast. Oregon and Washington have higher state minimum wages, lower unemployment and lower child poverty rates than California. Californians need a Living Wage.
League of Women Voters and California Labor Federation recommend YES ON PROPOSITION 210.
CLIFF WALDECK
President, California Small Business Owners Alliance
HON. HILDA SOLIS
Chair, California State Legislature Women's Caucus