First of all, cards on the table. We do not pay anyone minimum wage or even anything under $10 per hour which are part-time positions.

We wish the newspaper publishing business was the huge financial success it was before the turn of the century. Many fortunes were made and lost by the newspaper barons of the 1800 and 1900s. Many more people were once employed in the industry.

But times have changed. Sadly, we have many of us who work more for the love of the job than for the great wages and fantastic benefits that come with it. Competition from false news sources and the ability of websites to steal the products produced by real journalists has cut us to the core. But we struggle on and do our best to keep the public informed.

So we would like to address the minimum wage argument. In our industry, there is no expansion taking place and no revenue growth. If a newspaper is struggling to survive and government (with their vast intelligence and business experience) steps in and forces it to raise wages, there will be a direct correlation to the number of jobs eliminated and also to the increased cost passed on to the consumer.

What, you don’t want to pay more for the local news? You can get it somewhere else? Where do you think those “other” news sources take the news from? We can tell you: It comes right off our pages. If we don’t print it, you won’t get it. So the government action (two words that seldom go together) will have improved the wages of a few but eliminated the jobs of others and reduced the ability of publishers to inform the public to whatever else (if anything) government is doing to them.

But we are a small industry. What about the restaurant and bar industry? Their pay system is most unusual compared to most. Many of the workers in the service industry currently draw more from tips than in wages. If our fearless leaders in Harrisburg have their way, bar and restaurant owners will have huge increases in the cost of operation. Government probably sees that as a plus because there will be many fewer to shut down when the legislators decide to blame them as the primary industry causing a pandemic. Service in your favorite food establishment will immediately suffer as the owner will employ half as many wait staff and bartenders and still need them to serve just as many tables and customers as they did with a bigger staff. Waiting times will double, conveniences like valet parking will disappear, and your experience will leave you not so likely to tip as well since the workers are now getting a supposed livable wage from the owner. In all likelihood, the total compensation for those careers will go down.

As we write, the few retailers left are in a state of flux. But these new mandates will clear that up. Remember Kmart? Sears? BonTon? Warehouse Sales and Trader Horn? Weren’t they great, longtime, well-established businesses? They could never go away, could they? Well these new “minimum wages” being pushed are likely to cause “minimum employed” as the retailers such as Target, Walmart and others shift to online-only operations.

They are all studying hard the results of COVID pushing people to online shopping. They have smart people (not elected officials) who can see how a few dollars of the new minimum wage for the state tax coffers will allow them to eliminate not only jobs but also the need for floor space in retail outlets. Every place will look like the Clearview Mall, and we senior citizens will have uninterrupted walking room to enjoy without any silly stores being open to distract us.

Minimum wage needs to be increased. How could anyone possibly oppose that? It’s a great concept, but the last people to trust to figure out how to enact it would be the over-sized, over-paid and inexperienced legislators.

Butler County is fortunate to have a few good , honest people to try to find a solution. But they are few. Try tying a 50% reduction in the size of the Pennsylvania legislature to that and watch the constituents rally to support it. We double dog dare you.

And please wear your mask (both of them).

— RV