New Jersey businesses should get out in front of minimum wage increase

So I'm in the parking lot of a produce place on Rt 130 in East Windsor having a phone conversation with my good friend Mary Jo and she tells me my opinion of the minimum wage drives her crazy. “You keep taking it from the Ma and Pa stores where they can barely afford to pay their two or three people and not from the big corporations where the CEO's take home six figure incomes while the people who do the work can barely survive.”

The problem I have with raising the minimum wage in New Jersey is that when you do it for everyone, the people who don't deserve it get it as well. Having owned several businesses in New Jersey in places like Sea Isle City, Ocean Grove and Cherry Hill, I would see some employees busting their hump, while others were clearly just taking the money and running (make that "walk" because they were too lazy to run). Also, when everyone everywhere is paying the same minimum wage, if they don't want to work for you, then they can get the same money from the hardware store across the street. As an employer, you hold no leverage.

I believe big businesses know how to take care of themselves. That's how they got to be big business in the first place. What big business should do in this situation is offer a higher rate regardless of the minimum wage. This would not only assure them a more productive employee, but one who would care enough about the job to not want to do anything to risk losing it. You can now be selective about your work force and not have to deal with those that spend their day hating the job.

Walmart and Sam's Club are already paying their employees about $13 per hour full time and $10 part time. That's called staying ahead of the curve. Does this hurt the small businesses? Yes, but as they say: that's the price of doing business in New Jersey.

You know it's only a matter of time before New Jersey raises the minimum wage to $15 like in some other states. I think businesses in the meantime should get out in front of this by enticing the good workers while they still can.