Better than raising minimum wage?

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Doug Hoffman, director of Engage Alabama

By Doug Hoffman, a retired finance director of Children's Hospital and Director of Engage Alabama. He can be reached at: Engagealabama@gmail.com

In Alabama we all know when two football teams are mismatched. When a team like Alabama, loaded with NFL prospects, plays a team Coastal Carolina you just hope people don't get hurt - and know that it's bad form for Alabama to run up the score. A similar mismatch occurs when the wealthy residents of Mountain Brook go up against the working poor of Birmingham.

In this case Republican State Rep. David Faulkner of Mountain Brook is using the Republican super majority in the state legislature to play hard ball with Birmingham by blocking the minimum wage increase passed by the city last August.

Mr. Faulkner lives in a suburb where the average income is $130,000 and his bill HB174 would stop people in Birmingham from getting to $10.10 an hour - or $21,000 for a full time job. It's a sad mismatch and people in Birmingham are going to suffer for no good reason. When a team is up 130 to 21 you don't keep piling on. It's just plain greedy and offensive.

And, by the way, Mr. Faulkner works at the law firm Christian and Small which bills clients as much as $300 per hour for its services. But now he's working overtime to keep the poor of Birmingham at $7.25 per hour.

Mr. Faulkner will tell you that he's protecting the businesses of Birmingham. But, since the minimum wage was passed last year, there has been almost no opposition from the business community expressed to the city council. Many businesses are already paying close to $10 and others should know its good business to pay a living wage. A recent study by Cornell University observing the restaurant industry demonstrates that, over the past twenty years, minimum wage increases have not hurt the industry but, rather, the restaurants have thrived. Minor price increases and reduced staff turnover allow profit margins to be maintained.

And what does it say of a business whose profits are dependent on sending their workers to get food stamps and other poverty assistance? Society likes to shame the people who need food stamps to live but why are we protecting the businesses who profit off poverty level wages?

Faulkner will tell you we can't have every city with its own minimum wage. But Birmingham is the only city that has raised its wage in the past year. One city has chosen to help its low income citizens and the Republicans in Montgomery are passing a law to take it away from all cities. It's an overreaction and an abuse of locally elected decisions.

Why not let cities like Birmingham be the incubator for this effort to reduce poverty? Over 40% of the city's children live in poverty and most have parents working in $8 an hour jobs. The evidence from other cities that have raised their minimum wage is that it's good for local economies. If it's a mistake then the city council will be voted out and the ordinance can be overturned.

The irony of the situation is that most Republican's in the state legislature are vehemently opposed to any "big government interference" in state government. Yet, in this case, they seem to have no problem interfering in Birmingham's local government. The city council passed the ordinance unanimously with one abstention. Yet 'out of town' state Republicans are claiming to know better.

We allow different cities such as Mountain Brook to levy higher property and sales taxes on its residents. The city councils in those places want better parks or schools. Mr. Faulkner would not want the state legislature prohibiting Mountain Brook from these improvements. If the citizens of Mountain Brook don't like what their city council has done, then they vote them out. The same principles should apply to Birmingham.

The wealthy and Republican super majority in the state legislature are stealing a raise from the working poor of Birmingham. It's morally reprehensible. We all know that reducing poverty is the right thing to do. Let Birmingham and other cities try to do it their way.