In a move that took no one by surprise, Gov. Chris Christie yesterday again disregarded the pressing needs of the working poor, this time by vetoing a bill to increase in the minimum wage.

That fits a pattern. His first budget effectively raised income taxes on low-wage families by scaling back the earned-income tax credit. He has also ended health care coverage for thousands of low-wage families, closed down Planned Parenthood clinics that served them, and tried his best to raid huge sums of money from a trust fund set aside for affordable housing. In each case, the target is the working poor.

It is revealing that even as he knocked down these supports, he was arguing that New Jersey could afford an income-tax cut that would skew heavily toward the wealthy. Make no mistake, this is tea party economics.

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• Christie vetoes minimum wage bill, Democrats vow to put measure on ballot

Christie yesterday said increasing the minimum wage kills jobs because employers have a limited pot of money to work with. Higher wages means fewer workers. But many economists challenge that view. One famous study was done by economists at Princeton University and examined New Jersey’s experience in the 1990s, when the state raised its minimum wage higher than the wage in neighboring Pennsylvania. It found that business owners absorbed the increased cost, rather than move or scale back operations.

More recently, many economists, including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, have concluded that low wages are holding back the recovery. They note labor productivity has been growing steadily in recent decades, but wages have lagged as a larger share of revenue is diverted into profits. The result is that most consumers have less to spend.

If a higher minimum wage is really so toxic, how did America manage in 1968, when the real value of the wage was $10 an hour? How is it that Massachusetts and Vermont have much higher minimum wages than New Jersey, but much lower unemployment?

The federal minimum wage has been stuck forever at $7.25 an hour, so 19 states have passed their own higher minimum wages. But New Jersey is not among them, despite our high cost of living.

Christie’s answer is to offer a paltry raise, with no adjustment for inflation. Time for Democrats to push him aside and get this done. They can put this on the ballot this year as a constitutional amendment, which polls say is likely to win overwhelming approval. It should also link the wage to inflation, as 10 states do today, so that it doesn’t lose value.

Enshrining this in the state constitution is not the ideal way to make economic policy. But as long as Christie remains governor, it is the only way to get it done. His hostility to low-wage families has gone unchallenged long enough.

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