By Michael Hill
Correspondent
Chris Sconiers makes $8.50 an hour at a national department store in Trenton.
“We’re just trying to do this together because it’s just hard out here,” said Sconiers.
He recently moved in with his girlfriend to help make ends meet. She makes $8.25 an hour at a healthcare company – behind on bills and on the brink of eviction.
“So, if we could just put it together but we’re still struggling. That’s the crazy thing,” Sconiers said.
“Sometimes it gets so bad where I have to borrow money to get on the bus and to get back, we walk back and forth. We can’t even try to say lets get a car right now,” Sconiers said.
“It’s very difficult and I understand that,” said Perfect President Joe Olivo.
Olivo looks at the minimum wage debate as the co-owner of a Moorestown printing company with 57 full and part-time employees and with clients like Google and Oppenheimer funds.
“It’s just one more obstacle that makes it difficult for me to grow my business that ultimately benefits myself and my employees,” said Olivo.
Last November, New Jersey voters approved raising the state’s minimum wage by a dollar to $8.25 an hour –- one dollar more than the federal rate. It goes up by 13 cents an hour in January to match inflation.
Analysts say it still falls way short of economic security.
But, Olivo says when New Jersey’s minimum wage rises –- so do his costs –- taxes, health insurance, unemployment insurance and more — and so does his quest to do more with less.
For example, Olivo says it takes one worker an hour to bind 25 books. But, his just-arrived automated binder can do 300 books an hour. It’ll spell the end for five to eight workers.
“It creates an obstacle for me that yes I have to raise prices, ways to look for automation,” said Olivo.
The White House is using typical Republican resistance to raising the minimum wage as a wedge issue this mid-term election season and Tuesday, Gov. Chris Christie reacted.
“I’m tired of hearing about the minimum wage. I really am. I don’t think there’s a mother or father sitting around the kitchen table tonight in America who are saying, ‘You know, honey? If our son or daughter could just make a higher minimum wage, my God all our dreams would be realized,” said Christie.
“I’m tired of hearing it too because it’s certainly being done for purely political reasons,” said Olivo.
U.S. Labor secretary Tom Perez says Christie has his head in the sand on minimum wage and critics complain Christie just doesn’t get it that adults are expected to support their families on minimum wage jobs.
On Thursday, Christie said it’s not about income inequality but opportunity inequality and policies that create better paying jobs.
But, the Pulitzer-prize winning fact checker –- politifact.com –- says a study over eight months shows states that raise the minimum wage had higher job growth than states that didn’t.
The conventional wisdom is workers spend the wage hikes and that improves the economy.
“I do my own study every day, I see how it works in reality,” said Olivo.
“I hope so, I really hope so,” said Sconiers.
That’s what Sconiers says as he wonders if his minimum wage misery will end and soon.