Thousands lose jobs due to higher federal minimum wage
– Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The views expressed are her own. —
As President Obama considers whether to fulfill his campaign promise to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.50 per hour by 2011, there’s no better illustration of the consequences of well-intentioned policy-making than recent events in American Samoa, a United States territory in the South Pacific that falls within the purview of Congress.
Chicken of the Sea, the tuna company, announced this month that it will close its canning plant in American Samoa in September. The culprit is 2007 legislation in Washington that gradually increased the islands’ minimum wage until it reaches $7.25 an hour in July 2009, almost double the 2007 levels.
In 2007, the hourly minimum wage in American Samoa for fish canning and processing was $3.76 and the minimum wage for government employees was $3.41. Shipping had the highest minimum wage, at $4.59. Garment manufacturers got the lowest, at $3.18 an hour. A $7.25 wage is a substantial increase for most residents.
Chicken of the Sea will lay off 2,041 employees—12 percent of total employment, almost half of all cannery workers. And the 2,700 workers at StarKist, the other American Samoa tuna canning company and Chicken of the Sea’s rival, are probably concerned that their jobs are the next to go.
American Samoa’s loss is Georgia’s gain. Chicken of the Sea will move to Lyons, Georgia, (2007 population 4,480) employing 200 people in a new $20 million plant on a more capital-intensive production line.
In January 2007 the legislation originally did not include American Samoa, perhaps because Del Monte, at the time the parent company of StarKist, was headquartered in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district.
Thank you for the post – It is right on point! Most of the people that commented on this have no clue what or where American Samoa is. Someone mentioned a population of 3.2 million? Our population is only 70,000+, and for people’s information, our islands are located in the middle of the South Pacific. The ONLY resource that we have are the oceans as we have mountainous volcanic islands – so there is not enough flat lands for agricultural purposes. The ONLY export that we have is canned tuna – IF you take the canned tunas away, our economy is doomed! We don’t have anything else to export, and being that we are heavily dependent on imported goods – cost of living will skyrocket as we will need to pay higher shipping/ freight rates since the vessels will not have anything to carry back out of American Samoa. Most if not all American Samoans that live on American Samoa NEVER asked for this increasing minimum wage – this is a classic example of colonialism where such mandate will devastate the American Samoa economy and we can’t do anything about it as it is dictated by the federal government!