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Spent a little time looking into this research challenge and wanted to share what I’ve turned up. I do hope my State Senator @JeffreyBrandes is open to an alternative approach. 1/x https://twitter.com/jeffreybrandes/status/1354556548396306433
The research question is "how does a higher minimum wage help those who are already hard to hire?"
The focus here will be on Florida's ~1.4 million people with felony criminal records who have been released from prison. (2016 Data, Source: https://bit.ly/3r10YwK )
The focus here will be on Florida's ~1.4 million people with felony criminal records who have been released from prison. (2016 Data, Source: https://bit.ly/3r10YwK )
One concern about increased min wages is job loss due to automation. As @AnnaForFlorida pointed out in @theappeal, automation is here. We should train and guide this group toward jobs where there is a known talent gap.
(Source w/research links: https://bit.ly/39sqjKa ) 3/x
(Source w/research links: https://bit.ly/39sqjKa ) 3/x
Going to how higher min wages reduce crime & recidivism, this article has some good insights and shows the categories of crimes that are affected. It links to an academic working paper on the topic:
https://on.mktw.net/3otBZAu 4/x
https://on.mktw.net/3otBZAu 4/x
Now how do we incentivize hiring people with a criminal record for wary businesses? @PrisonPolicy is all over it with this solid (data-supported) write-up with specific policy recommendations:
https://bit.ly/3rd6xbR 5/x
https://bit.ly/3rd6xbR 5/x
Maybe also take time to read up on the @UNDP human security model from their 1994 Human Development Report. It's a helpful, simple framework when approaching conflict and security issues.
Full Report (Ch 2): https://bit.ly/2KXTMCr
Two-Pager: https://bit.ly/3cwZsPh 6/x
Full Report (Ch 2): https://bit.ly/2KXTMCr
Two-Pager: https://bit.ly/3cwZsPh 6/x
Something else I suggest considering is how the exception would likely worsen both gender and racial income inequality in Florida.
(Source: https://bit.ly/3iWhADl ) 7/x
(Source: https://bit.ly/3iWhADl ) 7/x
Let's close with some math. There are 1.4M post-sentence people in Florida with ~25% unemployment (that's ~1M employed and 400k unemployed). The average pay for unskilled labor in Florida is $12.03/hour.
(Source: https://indeedhi.re/2NBmbyW ) 8/x
(Source: https://indeedhi.re/2NBmbyW ) 8/x
Let's say only 50% of businesses choose to keep their hourly pay for formerly incarcerated people at $12.03 and that employed post-sentence folks work a 40 hour week (2,080 hours/year). That means 500k Floridians would get paid an extra $6,177.6/year! 9/x
That works out to more than $3 BILLION more to get spent in our state's economy... every year! But, this still leaves out the 500k from businesses that chose to use the exception you're proposing. 10/x
My question to @JeffreyBrandes is do you think this exception is worth losing out on the annual $3B these formerly incarcerated folks would otherwise contribute to our economy? Seems all these folks spending more money at small businesses would more than offset the cost. 11/11
