The state’s largest small-business advocacy group has warned that an increase in the state’s minimum wage would decrease the number of jobs available especially for workers with little or no experience or work skills.

“The net effect of Senate Bill 33 is to increase the state’s minimum wage. The net result is lost job opportunity — especially for workers with limited skills or those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder,” said Bill G. Smith, Wisconsin director of the National Federation of Independent Business (www.nfib.org). He spoke on Feb. 7 before the Senate Committee on Labor and Agriculture. Senate Bill 33 would raise the minimum wage by $1.65 per hour, up to $6.80.
“Business owners will be forced to scale back expansion plans, cancel additional hiring and somehow try and afford the increase in payroll costs,” Smith said.
During his testimony before the committee, Smith said small businesses with “real dollars and real jobs” have to react each time the minimum wage is increased.
“Forty percent of Wisconsin’s small-business owners said the first thing they would do if there was a minimum wage increase would be to reduce hours, reduce benefits and provide fewer job opportunities,” Smith said. “I don’t think this is the way we want to go.”
Raising the minimum wage is not the way to help the working poor, and Senate Bill 33 would unnecessarily burden small-business owners, Smith said. “Minimum wage hikes destroy job opportunities, especially for teenagers and minorities. Raising the minimum wage will reduce job opportunities, create inflationary pressure on our economy, and distract lawmakers from pursuing anti-poverty policies that may work more effectively and efficiently.”