Whining businessmen attack government for minimum wage pledge

Not a week into the working term, the whining business lobby have put the government in the firing line. Over what? The minimum wage. Again.

The Jersey Chamber of Commerce, a whinging cabal of entitled capitalist bastards "vibrant association of members from all business sectors who are dedicated to the promotion of trade, commerce and the general prosperity of Jersey", has directed one of its regular moans at the new Chief Minister and his partners in government, Reform Jersey. Criticising the agreement made last week between RJ and le Fondré, the Chamber said it was "concerned" about the "potentially serious impacts... on employers, employees, consumers and the wellbeing of the Jersey economy". In typical gutter-level style, Elliot Lincoln, the President of the JCC, raised Project Fear-style fears of "companies forced out of business, increased unemployment, reduced hours and raised prices for consumers".

My favourite part of this is how the JCC refers to RJ's plans to raise the minimum wage to a tenner an hour as "unresearched promises". Did they miss the part where Jersey's "living wage" was raised to the same level as London's - nearly £1.50 higher than the rest of the UK? The part where average house prices in Jersey was tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds higher than the UK average? Or perhaps the fact that a fifth of households live in relative low income, in one of the world's richest jurisdictions? The evidence is clear - Jersey needs a pay rise, badly.

The conventional business wisdom the JCC are peddling that minimum wage rises don't work is frankly ridiculous. Multiple studies done over the last few decades have shown that a rise in the minimum wage has little to no discernible effect on employment levels; below are a few sources that debunk the nonsensical myth of an unemployment-pocalypse in the event of a minimum wage rise.

Business for a Fair Minimum Wage:
https://www.businessforafairminimumwage.org/news/00135/research-shows-minimum-wage-increases-do-not-cause-job-loss 
The Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/11/the-evidence-is-clear-increasing-the-minimum-wage-doesnt-cause-unemployment
Business Insider:
http://uk.businessinsider.com/britain-doubled-minimum-wage-with-no-effect-on-unemployment-2017-10
The Huffington Post:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-pacitti/raising-the-minimum-wage-_3_b_7152976.html?guccounter=1

There is no evidence for the propaganda the JCC is peddling. It simply isn't true, and the evidence proves that. It's clear what their real intentions are: to prevent a rise in the minimum wage to keep more money in the hands of the greedy capitalists that make up their members, and out of the hands of ordinary working people.