Durham Reporter

Lawmakers who want to more than double the minimum wage often mean well, but a mandatory pay hike to $15 per hour would be bad for North Carolina and its people, a member of the state's human relations commission said during a recent interview.

"I think that lawmakers, whether they are local, state or federal, they always want to be able to say to their constituents 'See, we did something. We're trying to help,'" North Carolina Human Relations Commissioner Immanuel Jarvis said. "But that's almost like a 4-year-old coming to their parents and saying 'Hey, Daddy, I did something, I tried to help,' when what they did was paint the living room wall."

State lawmakers aren't children, but some of them are ready to "help" North Carolina by pushing for a minimum wage hike, Jarvis said.

North Carolina Human Relations Commissioner Immanuel Jarvis | Photo courtesy of Immanuel Jarvis

"They want to help but they don't know what they're doing and they're causing more damage to the infrastructure and the economy," he said. "What the minimum wage is, is the economic floor. It's the price floor so that wages can't go beyond a certain level. When you raise that price floor artificially above what the market can bear, you're going to run into problems."

The state's Human Relations Commission "advocates, enforces, and promotes equality of opportunity in the areas of housing, fair employment practices, public accommodations, education, justice and governmental services," according to its website.

Jarvis, who also is chairman of the Durham County Republican Party, has been an at-large member of the commission since January 2014. His current term is set to expire in June of next year.

North Carolina employers are required to pay their workers the state minimum wage, which has been $7.25 since 2008. An exception is made for state employers with tipped employees, who are required to be paid at least $2.13 an hour so long as the worker receives enough in tips to earn at least $7.25.

Increasing the minimum wage has had some support in North Carolina. Earlier this year, 16 state House Democrats introduced House Bill 366, which would raise the state's minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2024. The bill passed first reading on March 18 before it was referred the same day to a House finance committee, where it has been ever since.

While that attempt didn't get very far, another attempt seems likely and should it ever succeed, the result would be predictable, Jarvis said.

"Look at New York, look at Seattle," he said. "The evidence is right there to show what happens and who gets hurt."

In New York, where legislation to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour was signed into law in 2016, workers have reported their hours have been cut and the increase has been called "a disaster."

In Seattle, the minimum wage hit $15 per hour in 2017 for companies with more than 500 employees and will be phased in for all the state's employers by 2021, except for the city's largest employers, who now are required to pay workers $16. Some restaurants in that city have reported struggling since the wage hike began to kick in and a University of Washington study found that lower-skilled Seattle workers are finding fewer jobs open to them.

"That's exactly what would happen here in North Carolina," Jarvis said.

A dramatic minimum wage increase will lead to an increase in the price of goods and services, including food, as employers pass their higher labor costs onto consumers, which would hit the poor especially hard, Jarvis said.  

"The price of food goes up as wages go up," he said. "This is fairly elementary; you learn this in the first two to three chapters in any textbook in any basic economy class. When wages go up, the price of food has to go up as well. So while one person may be making more money per hour, if their food costs go up then what will be the difference?"

Instead of increasing the state's minimum wage, a better idea would be to encourage people to gain the skills needed to get already better-paying jobs that already exist, Jarvis said.

"They have more dexterity, more independence to be able to purchase what they want," he said. "Fortunately, we live in a country where there are burgeoning industries that don't require four-year college degrees for jobs that pay $50,000 or $60,000 a year. Those jobs require certifications. It's not like it can't happen, it's just a matter of where our focus is."

The focus needs to be on training the state's workforce for those existing jobs, Jarvis said.

"There needs to be a true investment and a pathway, whether it be in high school or university student or ever for a person with less than a high school education, for certification," he said. "There's IT training, IT security, CompTIA training. You take a six-week class, you get certified and then you find yourself making $39,000 or more a year."