Letter to the Editor By Jack Kinstlinger
Baltimore Sun, April 25, 2016
Commentator Stephen J.K. Walters claims that the proposal by City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke to hike Baltimore's minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2020 would put another nail in the city's economic coffin ("A well-intentioned nail in Baltimore's economic coffin," April 19).
I disagree. Mr. Walters cites an obscure Princeton study dating from the 1990s. But why use a single outdated study as evidence when real life experiences are all around us? And they certainly do not support his position.
San Francisco, Calif., Santa Fe, N.M., and Washington, D.C., were among the first major cities to raise their minimum wages. These increases were found to have had little effect on employment in traditionally low-wage sectors of their economies.
Further, it was found that in six other cities that have raised their minimum wages in the past decade, and in the 21 states with higher base pay than the federal minimum, the higher wage costs were largely absorbed through lower job turnover, small price increases and higher productivity. Employment remained little changed while the local economy benefited from increased consumer spending by the wage earners.
As further evidence that raising the minimum wage does not harm employment, Goldman Sachs compared the employment change in the 13 states where the minimum wage increased to the employment change in states where the minimum wage remained constant. It concluded that states that had wage hikes at the start of 2014 in fact performed better than states without hikes.
I applaud Councilwoman Clarke's proposal, which if enacted will surely benefit the city's economy.
Jack Kinstlinger, Towson
[Chairman Emeritus, KCI Technologies]