All policy—economic or social, conservative or liberal—has unintended consequences. Good policy would minimize the negative effects of the measure while best targeting the problem that is being addressed. When it comes to business-related legislation, we are far from good policy.
Take employer mandates like paid family leave and increased minimum wage for example. Both efforts seek to tackle an issue head on, and are branded as “pro-worker” legislation. In an isolated bubble, this may be true. However, in the real world, pro-worker measures inflict more damage than that they seek to heal.
If paid family leave looks to provide a better work life balance and support to families, then why is it ignored that the current proposals would result in smaller wages, layoffs, or impact social security? These side effects are pretty harmful to workers and their families as well.
Look at minimum wage. The entire argument in support of $15 per hour is based on the need for a livable wage for these workers. But what happens when their employer cannot afford the cost increase, and cannot raise their prices high enough to make up for it? Instead of a $15 hourly wage, many workers will be left with no hourly wage when they are laid off to accommodate the mandate. Zero dollars is certainly not a livable wage.
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Legislation and regulations that are anti-business are blatantly anti-worker and anti-jobs.
Small businesses are vastly important to the American and Delaware economy. Such critical establishments should be supported by their representatives, but unfortunately are not. In fact, it’s the opposite. Government regulation is killing small businesses—and killing the jobs they create as well.
Putting social goals over profits is misleading. Traditional profit-seeking entrepreneurship has benefits that span community, socio-economic status, race, and gender. Suppressing these profits will in turn suppress the benefits they provide to overall society.
Increases in regulatory restrictions are associated with declines in lower- and middle-skilled jobs, lower wages, reduced hours, layoffs. None of those things are pro-worker.
In a better informed government that weighed the consequences of feel good legislation, lawmakers would work across the aisle to support bills that actually promote job growth, support businesses, and strengthen the economy. This new approach would mean that our elected officials work for the people, instead of duping them.
The next time you hear a lawmaker, party representative, colleague, or friend denounce a pro-business policy for being anti-worker or for putting business over the people, consider how a business can support its workers when their operations take a hit, and why both sides can’t align on this issue.
