Say Thank You! The Vermont General Assembly Just Improved the New Hampshire Advantage - Granite Grok

Say Thank You! The Vermont General Assembly Just Improved the New Hampshire Advantage

Vermont State House

By one vote the Vermont House overrode Gov. Phil Scott’s veto of a bill to arbitrarily increase the state’s minimum wage. Legislators, it seems, know better than job creators what any starting hour of labor is worth across every profession. That’s fine. They just did New Hampshire a huge favor.

Related: Vermonter: NH Doesn’t Deserve the First in The Nation Primary

Vermont House lawmakers voted 100-49 Tuesday to override Gov. Phil Scott’s veto of a minimum wage increase, handing Democratic leaders a razor-thin and much-needed legislative win.

With the Senate voting last week to override the Republican governor’s veto, the bill now becomes law, having achieved the two-thirds necessary in the 150-member House. It will hike the current minimum wage of $10.96 per hour to $11.75 in 2021 and to $12.55 in 2022 before increases will again be tied to inflation.

Democrat leadership is very excited about this accomplishment. A few hundred folks telling thousands of business owners what starting wage they must pay. Have any of them ever run a business? Managed one? A few perhaps. But not every business. This means they just made these numbers up out of thin air and forced them on job creators.

And that’s good for the New Hampshire Advantage

For the record, our statewide average wage (not starting wage) is quite high. And there are very few people, despite the Left’s rhetoric, who get paid a minimum wage (for long) or rely on it to support themselves or someone else. But we don’t have a New Hampshire minimum wage. We use the Federal government’s number. 7.25/hour.

It’s a good number. Why? Because if you have no skill whatsoever it incentivizes job creators to take you on and train you. If you have a knack for the work, you will earn more, especially in the current (New Hampshire) economy. We have a labor shortage. Low wage workers can job shop even basic skills for better pay and find it without much effort. Learn more skills. And not a single legislator was involved in the process.

Which is as it should be. They don’t know a damn thing or very little. And regardless of how good or bad you feel these sorts of interventions may be, one thing is certain. People looking to open a business around these parts who can choose between New Hampshire or Vermont are probably going to choose New Hampshire.

Starting a business and keeping it solvent is a challenge, even in a good economy. Vermont’s general assembly just told everyone in the state who has to make payroll to make it bigger. Raise your prices. Or, cut jobs or hours.  And it is a problem that will get bigger next year, and the year after that whether their business and the economy is good or not.

And depending on what public employees make local budgets and taxes will have to go up to compensate as well. Another cost burden placed on everyone by 180 geniuses in the state’s capital.

People who might have had jobs won’t and businesses that might have stayed open won’t. All because of a few bureaucrats who think they know better.

They don’t.

But for now, at least, despite New Hampshire Democrat’s trying to screw our economy up as well, they lack the votes for a veto override. And hopefully, after November, we won’t have to worry about it for another few years.

So, thank you Vermont, again. For doing the wrong thing. 

As for you Vermonters, if you are thinking of coming here, we welcome you unless you intend to vote for the same sort of idiots that drove you out of that state. If that’s your plan, stay there. You’re already living the liberal dream. Leave us out of it.

| Seven Days

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