Trenton, NJ – Today, the New Jersey Senate is set to vote on legislation that will create a government mandated $15 minimum wage. 

During the legislative process, multiple groups and organizations came forward, decried this as bad policy, and pleaded for carve-outs from the $15 an hour government mandated pay rate, all to save their businesses. The growing list of requested exemptions includes youth workers, farm workers, seasonal workers, tipped workers, disabled workers, training wage workers, small business owners, and even local governments.

“The business community is fighting for these exemptions, because this legislation hurts.  It hurts businesses everywhere, in an environment that already punishes the State’s many job creators,” said NJGOP Chairman Dough Steinhardt. “It’s none too ironic that even local governments got in on the backlash, as municipalities across the State complained that government mandated wages will add to their already deepening budget holes.  Everyone wants out on government mandated wages, because they work for no one.”

Steinhardt added that, “There is this misconception out there that a minimum wage equals a livable wage, but it doesn’t. The added costs of doing business are simply piled onto the State’s consumers, so the unaffordability crisis continues.  The NJGOP has amassed petition signatures in opposition to this short sighted plan, with little hope that Trenton’s tone deaf Democrats will listen or save New Jersey’s failing businesses.”

Chairman Steinhardt concluded with a message for Governor Murphy, “I’ve said it before, pie in the sky ideas won’t put food on the tables of New Jersey’s starving families, but fiscal responsibility will.  Stop spending money and start saving it. Calling a policy progressive doesn’t mean it moves us forward and, in this case, it will set New Jersey’s businesses and job creators back, again.”