Since Congress stopped raising the federal minimum wage in 1981, the U.S. economy has generated nine million new jobs at all salary levels. We don't think that is a mere coincidence. Some of those new jobs wouldn't be there if Congress had continued to dictate a minimum level of wages. Yet organized labor, which constantly asserts its interest in job creation, has made a strong pitch for the Kennedy-Hawkins "Minimum Wage Restoration Act," a bill that would head the minimum wage upward once more. More witnesses will be heard at a House hearing today. Worst news of all, Labor Secretary William Brock appears ready to compromise away President Reagan's soundly based opposition to the minimum wage. When politicians and unions promote laws such as Kennedy-Hawkins, they say they are legislating benefits for working people. Such arguments are based on either economic illiteracy or hypocrisy. In reality, a minimum wage prices the weakest members of the work force out of jobs. A more candid union argument holds that increases in the minimum raises wage scales generally, but the truth of that is doubtful too. At any rate, a study commission appointed by Jimmy Carter estimated in a 1981 report that every 10% increase in the minimum wage cost the economy 80,000 to 200,000 entry-level jobs. Kennedy-Hawkins proposes raising the minimum wage to $4.65 by 1990 from today's $3.35, and, more damaging, tying the minimum wage in future to the average wage for all non-supervisory private employees. Secretary Brock in June suggested the administration might go along with this scheme if youths are exempted and the indexing plan is dropped. That's exactly the kind of wobbly position this administration should be avoiding. A few more such compromises and the economic credibility President Reagan has so vigorously established will have been wasted away. Senator Dan Quayle, a Republican, has calculated that two Democratic projects, the minimum-wage increase proposed for 1989 and mandatory health coverage, would add $1.49 an hour more to wage costs at the bottom of the income scale. That's more than a 44% increase. Employers on the margin will simply do without workers whose value doesn't justify a 44% cost increase. Senator Kennedy, of course, wants it known far and wide that he is helping the poor. He asserts that because the current minimum is so low it threatens new American poverty. In fact, just the opposite is true. Only some 5% of American workers today earn the minimum, compared with 12% six years ago. By and large, these are "secondary" and "tertiary" earners in households, many of them teen-agers. The absence of the minimum-wage constraint on the ability of these extra earners to find jobs has relieved poverty, not increased it. Secretary Brock has said he won't concede on anything in the Kennedy package that will create job loss. That's nice. But does that leave anyone in government who is concerned about future job gains?
A Wall Street Journal editorial states that the US economy generated 9 M new jobs since Congress stopped raising the minimum wage in 1981 . Yet, Organized Labor which supports job creation, makes a strong pitch for the Quayle -Hawkins " Minimum Wage Restoration Act ". The Journal fears that Labor Secretary Kennedy may compromise away President Reagan 's opposition to the minimum wage. Labor would raise the wage from $ 4.65 to $ 4.65 in three years . Senator Quayle has calculated that Republican projects on minimum wage and health coverage would add $ 1.19 to wage costs at the bottom of the income scale.