It looks like Chicago is intent on driving out jobs from its downtown (via NY Times):
After months of fevered lobbying and bitter debate, the Chicago City Council passed a groundbreaking ordinance yesterday requiring "big box" stores, like Wal-Mart and Home Depot, to pay a minimum wage of $10 an hour by 2010, along with at least $3 an hour worth of benefits.
The Chicago City Council thinks they are doing the city's low-income residents a favor (via Fox News):
"It's trying to get the largest companies in America to pay decent wages," said Alderman Toni Preckwinkle.
The city's low-income residents might not even have a chance to be hired by America's largest companies if they all leave Chicago (via Fox News):
Wal-Mart spokesman John Bisio said earlier that if the measure passed, "We'd redirect our focus on our suburban strategy and see how we could better serve our city of Chicago residents from suburban Chicagoland."
Wal-Mart was already paying competitive wages before the "living wage" proposal was passed (via Fox News):
Wal-Mart said that its average hourly wage is almost $11 an hour in the Chicago area and that the lowest wage that will be paid at the new West Side store will be $7.25 an hour.
Of course after they get all this money from retail stores they will need no know how to distribute the money.
Hence, a research or study group will have to be initialized. This should take care of a few hundred thousand dollars. The study group will milk their "study" for a few months to make sure of that.
Also a board of directors will probably have to be hired to better and more efficiently distribute the money. Nice hefty salaries for the board of directors will more than likely be expected since the city of Chicago would want to attract the best of the best.
After the decision would be made of where the money should go, that's when special interests or/and the Political Correctness police will interfere by criticizing that one ethnic group is getting more than another ethnic group, etc etc. Some law suits (America's favorite pastime) may also be at hand. This should take a few years to resolve and more money.
Ahhh...the wonderful world of government knows better what to do with your money than the average folk, or business in this case. But hey we can't let those devilish capitalists at Wal Mart make such huge profits...long live Socialism.
Of course after they get all this money from retail stores they will need no know how to distribute the money.
Hence, a research or study group will have to be initialized. This should take care of a few hundred thousand dollars. The study group will milk their "study" for a few months to make sure of that.
Also a board of directors will probably have to be hired to better and more efficiently distribute the money. Nice hefty salaries for the board of directors will more than likely be expected since the city of Chicago would want to attract the best of the best.
After the decision would be made of where the money should go, that's when special interests or/and the Political Correctness police will interfere by criticizing that one ethnic group is getting more than another ethnic group, etc etc. Some law suits (America's favorite pastime) may also be at hand. This should take a few years to resolve and more money.
Ahhh...the wonderful world of government knows better what to do with your money than the average folk, or business in this case. But hey we can't let those devilish capitalists at Wal Mart make such huge profits...long live Socialism.
Posted by: Tony M. at July 29, 2006 05:08 PM