Critics Want Santa Fe to Freeze Minimum Wage

SANTA FE – As Santa Fe marks the 10th anniversary of its nationally known living wage ordinance, some members of the local business community say it’s time to freeze the wage at its current rate.

If trends continue, Santa Fe’s minimum wage, currently $10.29 per hour, could easily go to $10.50 or more next year.

“We continue to get numerous inquiries and concerns about the wage and its automatic increase every January,” Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce president Simon Brackley said.

“We are 27 percent higher than Albuquerque, and every time a business has to increase their entry-level wage folks, they have to put up prices to compensate,” he added.

The chamber and others have consistently opposed the wage increases, and – when the rate jumped last year from $9.85 to $10.29 per hour, giving the City Different the highest minimum wage in the country – argued the rate needed to be capped.

Brackley said he’s meeting with city councilors to gauge support for the idea. “We would like to see the wage disconnected from the cost of living index,” he said.

A city ordinance requires that wage increases be recalculated every year based on a federally determined annual consumer price index for the Western United States.

Last year’s hike included a CPI increase from 2010 that Santa Fe officials failed to notice and implement. For just 2011, the index increased by 2.8 percent, raising the wage by 30 cents.

In August, the CPI already was up around 2 percent compared with the corresponding month the year before – enough to tack on about another 20 cents to the current $10.29 hourly rate.

Mayor David Coss said the minimum wage will quickly lose its meaning if it doesn’t keep up with inflation. He called the wage a “great accomplishment” that has “made a giant difference in the lives of working families.”

“The Chamber of Commerce has never stopped saying ‘The sky is going to fall,’ and yet we have an unemployment rate right now of 5 percent, which is the lowest of any large city in the state,” Coss said. “I think it’s something that has certainly worked for working families and has probably helped, and certainly not hurt, our economy.”

But Al Lucero of Maria’s New Mexican Kitchen, who has been active in the wage rate debate for years, said the increases have “got to stop.”

He said customers end up paying for higher employee wages through higher prices. A high minimum wage can also hurt the employment prospects of high school kids and take away the incentive for a young person to seek higher education or training, he added.

Lucero said Coss and other living wage supporters “won the war” and now “want to win every battle.”

At least a few Santa Fe City Councilors say they are willing to talk about the future of minimum wage increases.
— This article appeared on page C2 of the Albuquerque Journal