Minimum Wage Reality in Oakland

The City of Oakland, California is getting ready to follow other liberal enclaves like Seattle in imposing higher minimum wage ordinances. But it turns out that at least one non-profit organization in Oakland understands the economics of wage floors. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

Oakland's Youth Employment Partnership spends roughly $1.8 million a year to give 800 hard-to-employ teens steady minimum-wage jobs that keep them away from vice and encourage them to appreciate a hard day's work.

But the nonprofit could be forced to cut the jobs it offers by 30 percent next year if Oakland voters approve a plan in November to raise the city's minimum wage from $9 to $12.25 an hour starting March 1, its executive director said.

Because nonprofits have only a fixed amount of grant money each year, the ballot measure, called Lift Up Oakland, could have the unintended consequence of making it harder to hire and train thousands of at-risk and needy workers - teens, parolees and those with limited work experience, nonprofit leaders say.

If artificially increasing the price of something (low-skilled labor in this case) results in less of it being used by this non-profit organization, what is it (other than rampant ignorance) that would make someone think that every other user of low-skilled labor won't behave the same way? The author of this article, Will Kane, implies that for-profit employers must have unlimited amounts of money to spend on wages. Which, of course, means that Will has never actually run a business.