Pataki to Poor: $5.15 Is Plenty for You

What was New York's most jaw-dropping spectacle last week: second-generation daredevil Robbie Knievel clearing seven fighter jets before sliding into bails of hay on the USS Intrepid, or our gangly governor vetoing a hugely popular bill to raise the minimum wage to $7, citing a concern for workers?

Pataki's supporters in the Birch-ite Conservative Party and at the only slightly less batty Business Council of New York claim that raising the minimum wage two dollars by 2006 would put the state at a competitive disadvantage with its neighbors. The shaky crayon version of this argument was made by Pataki's eager pugs at the Post, which editorialized that an increase in the minimum wage would drive all those Blimpie jobs not to New Jersey, not to Pennsylvania-but to India. (We also hear John Kerry has picked Manute Bol as his veep. Pass it on.)

The businesses that employ the highest percentage of the state's minimum-wage employees are retailers and restaurants, mostly chains. Unless they team up to build a massive vacuum-tube network across the tri-state area, those jobs aren't going anywhere. Pataki and Co. know this. They have also been made aware of a study of New Jersey's minimum-wage increase in 1992, which showed no subsequent reduction in Garden State jobs. A rigorous follow-up study conducted by economist Thomas Michl found a slight reduction in hours that was more than offset by the higher wage-but again, no job losses. Another major study by the Levy Institute found that after the 1996-7 federal minimum-wage increase, fewer than one-third of one percent of businesses reported job losses as a result.

So what's Pataki's problem? Principle. Many on the right, like the folks at the Conservative Party, simply don't think the government has a right to dictate wages-at least not upward. They think doing so is theft, agitating for it "class warfare." Which is true. All politics is class warfare. It always has been and always will be. But this is one battle the governor and his allies will lose. The combined vote in the Senate and Assembly was 173 for, 26 against.

If Pataki really fears the effects the wage increase will have on the working poor, his best hope is to take his case directly to some of the 1.2 million people who stand to benefit. Most of them are adults with full-time jobs-almost half of them in NYC. I'm sure they'd love a chance to talk the issue over with a politician who actually listens. But something tells us the governor would sooner attempt a jump over seven fighter jets on a motorcycle.

That we'd pay seven bucks to see.