Higher minimum wage won’t create jobs
Letters to the Editor February 8, 2013 7:18PM
Updated: March 11, 2013 6:39AM
Higher minimum wage won’t create jobs
Gov. Pat Quinn’s claim that raising Illinois’ minimum wage by more than 20 percent will boost the economy and create jobs has been proven wrong on numerous occasions. Eighty-five percent of the most credible economic studies on the minimum wage from the last two decades point to job loss following a wage hike. And the hardest-hit demographic will be Illinois teenagers, who already face a 27 percent unemployment rate and one of the country’s highest state minimum wages.
Gov. Quinn is entitled to his opinion, but the facts are indisputable: Minimum wage increases harm the people they’re intended to help.
Michael Saltsman, research director
Employment Policies Institute,
Washington
Time to fine the intoxicated
It’s heartening to see that 19th Ward Ald. Matt O’Shea continues his quest to keep the South Side Irish Parade family-friendly by increasing fines for public urination, open alcohol containers on the street, and public drunkenness.
But as a North-Sider, I have to ask: Why do the citizens of Beverly deserve special treatment?
Drunken idiots citywide should face fines of $500 to $1,000 every day, not just drunken idiots on South Western Avenue one Sunday in March. Think of the revenue the city could take in after an average Cubs or Sox or Bears game, not to mention the ongoing revelry in neighborhoods like Boy’s Town, Wicker Park or the Viagra Triangle.
Bill Savage,
Rogers Park
The truth about pension costs
Your editorial on Gov. Pat Quinn’s comments calling for reduced pension costs are a diversion from the truth. What many people do not understand, or care about, is that the pension, until recently, was seldom (if ever) funded by the state, but really was funded only by employee contributions and successful investments. The state had not contributed to them. Now there is concern that the state must make up for decades of not funding.
Unlike private industry, many recipients of public pensions don’t get Social Security because the government also does not pay a 6.4 percent FICA tax contribution to that program. Your endorsement for lower pension costs is like backing con artists that have taken others’ money for their own use. There is a need for reform. Just don’t place the entire burden on the people that have already done their part.
Scott R. Zuhr, Park Ridge
