Common Sense on the MInimum Wage...

... is more easily found on the business pages than in Olympia. Dan Voelpel's column in The News Tribune is a must-read. He looks at the state's highest-in-the-nation-and-ever-escalating minimum wage, brought about by a labor-backed, voter-approved initiative in 1998 and concludes:

Somehow we have bought into the misconception that the minimum wage should equal a family wage.

It isn?t. The minimum wage is a work force entry wage, a wage paid for a supplemental income, a wage for someone in the job temporarily rather than a career.

It has consequences, as a restaurateur tells Voelpel.

Duke Moscrip, the owner of Duke?s Chowder House restaurants, says the latest 48-cent bump will cost his company $50,000 more a year in wages, not counting the additional taxes and benefits he must pay on the higher wage rate.

Moscrip also gets the last, painfully accurate, word in the column. I'll give it to him here, as well.

?People down in Olympia don?t seem to have any understanding of the business world. They think this money grows on trees and the employees should be getting everything. What they don?t realize is if they break the back of businesses, and especially restaurants, there won?t be any jobs.��