Washington Post: Leaked documents show strong business support for raising the minimum wage

So why do most chambers of commerce still oppose it?

By Lydia DePillis
Washington Post, April 4, 2016

Whenever minimum wage increases are proposed on the state or federal level, business groups tend to fight them tooth and nail. But actual opposition may not be as united as the groups' rhetoric might make it appear, according to internal research conducted by a leading consultant for state chambers of commerce.

The survey of 1,000 business executives across the country was conducted by LuntzGlobal, the firm run by Republican pollster Frank Luntz, and obtained by a liberal watchdog group called the Center for Media and Democracy. (The slide deck is here, and the full questionnaire is here.) Among the most interesting findings: 80 percent of respondents said they supported raising their state's minimum wage, while only eight percent opposed it.

"That’s where it’s undeniable that they support the increase,” LuntzGlobal managing director David Merritt told state chamber executives in a webinar describing the results, noting that it squares with other polling they’ve done. “And this is universal. If you’re fighting against a minimum wage increase, you’re fighting an uphill battle, because most Americans, even most Republicans, are okay with raising the minimum wage.”

Merritt then provided some tips on how to defuse that support, such as suggesting other poverty-reduction methods like the Earned Income Tax Credit. “Where you might find some comfort if you are opposing it in your state is, 'how big of a priority is it against other priorities?'” he said. "Most folks think there are bigger priorities. Creating more jobs rather than raising the minimum wage is a priority that most everyone agrees with. So when you put it up against other issues, you can find other alternatives and other things to focus on. But in isolation, and you ask about the minimum wage, it's definitely a winner.”

Sixty-three percent of respondents said they belong to a chamber of commerce, whether on the local, state, or federal level — suggesting that the groups' public statements might be out of step with their members' beliefs. The materials shed light on how some business trade associations operate, and why they’ve continued to oppose minimum wage increases even as the rest of the public thaws towards them. ...

Some business groups have a different perspective — but don’t necessarily have the power to combat a state chamber when it puts its mind to something.

The South Carolina Small Business Chamber of Commerce has supported a higher minimum wage, but its president Frank Knapp says his members simply don’t have the bandwidth to push for it, with so many other issues on their plate. “When you actually talk to those people one on one, you find that yeah they’re fine with raising the minimum wage,” Knapp says. “But they’re not going to crusade for the minimum wage.”

That might be true of traditional chamber members too, Knapp thinks, many of whom mostly join for the networking benefits rather than the political advocacy aspect anyway. But within those groups, the industries that care most about a given policy matter — hotels and restaurants, in the case of the minimum wage — drive the organization’s agenda. “Usually the most vocal members of the state chambers dominate on that particular issue, and everybody else stays quiet,” Knapp says.

When that happens, it’s easy for politicians and the public to get the idea that the private sector stands united against raising the minimum wage, when opinions are actually much more diverse.

Holly Sklar is CEO of a national group called Business for a Fair Minimum Wage that favors raising the wage floor in states and nationwide, and she points to a number of surveys by reputable pollsters — from CareerBuilder, Small Business Majority, and the American Sustainable Business Council — that found most businesses agree. Many of those businesses don’t join state chambers, which means their opinions don’t filter up to the organization’s leadership, so its positions don’t change — and that’s what gets conveyed to politicians.

“Sometimes you end up confused by the fact that someone has enough money to be in the halls of the state senate, day after day after day, funded by some of the bigger corporations that have more of an investment in the status quo,” Sklar says. “It has an impact on how it’s perceived — you start thinking that’s what business thinks.”