To the Editor:

While it is true that it would be very difficult to live on one’s own on $9 an hour, it is even harder with no job at all. And when someone is sharing a home with family, friends or a domestic partner, every income, however modest, helps meet expenses. A low-wage “starter job” is often the best way for teenagers, immigrants and labor force re-entrants to acquire the skills that will eventually qualify them for higher-paying jobs.

The $15 minimum wage proposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo will at best drive these jobs underground, and at worst will turn the lowest-skilled into perpetual welfare clients by denying them entry-level employment. Instead of raising the minimum wage, New York’s legislators should eliminate it altogether.

J. HUSTON McCULLOCH

New York

The writer is an adjunct professor of economics at New York University.





To the Editor:

Those who support a higher minimum wage are wrongly assuming that everyone who is currently earning $9 per hour will be earning $15 per hour when the minimum wage increases. As a small-business owner who employs minimum wage workers, I assure you that when the wage increases, small businesses like mine will most likely dismiss our current workers and hire much more competent workers (that is, college educated). I feel for the uneducated who will end up unemployed when the wage increases.

DAVID PACCHIANA

Cortlandt Manor, N.Y.









In today's NY Times, there are two letters to the editor that point out the likely costs of sharply increasing the minimum wage. There is also a vigorous defense of landlords. The "capitalist's voice" is rarely heard in the March 2016 New York Times and that's a shame. Here is the landlord's piece. Here are the two sane letters to the editor about raising the minimum wage to $15.