A new $25 per hour minimum wage in NJ? Great. Where’s your raise?

Recently, legislation was introduced to raise the federal minimum wage to $25 an hour by U.S. Rep. Analilia Mejia, D-N.J., 11th District. New Jersey's current minimum wage is 15.92 per hour (Rick Rickman has more on the $25 an hour push here).

Even though New Jersey already has one of the highest minimum wages when compared to other states (not the highest, but it's up there), even this proposal for us would be a huge shift. Should New Jersey's minimum wage be hiked to $25 an hour?

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Personally? I don't agree with this at all. Heck, I still don't agree that New Jersey's minimum wage is less than a dime away of hitting $16 per hour.

Here's why I feel this way.

Hike is too aggressive

Yes, this new $25 per hour hike wouldn't go into effect immediately. But it would go up aggressively.

Think about how it happened here in New Jersey. We went up a dollar an hour every year until we hit that benchmark of $15 per hour. But even a dollar every year is a lot for small businesses to absorb.

Not only that, but I also feel that $15 per hour is too high. In my opinion, we should've stopped at $12 per hour. That, to me, is the sweet spot of where we should be today.

Plus, the cost of living is different depending on where you live. Meaning, the federal minimum wage should take this into account. If $25 is too high for New Jersey, can you imagine how out of touch it is in other states?

Everything else will get more expensive

This one's a given. We already saw it happen here in New Jersey. Simply put, that extra money is coming from you.

What about your raise?

Guess what? You're most likely not getting one. That is, unless you're already making minimum wage. This proposal is just too high to bring everyone else up by the same percentage.

And it's not fair to those who have worked so hard to get where they are today. Again, to be clear, I'm not opposed to the minimum wage going up if it's tied to inflation. I am against making it a true livable wage.

Why? Because that's not the purpose of minimum wage. And I truly do believe all the situations mentioned above will happen if we hike it to such an extreme level.

More robots to come

And we can't forget about this. If businesses know they'll have to be forced to spend so much more, they'll probably opt to invest in technology instead. Especially artificial intelligence (AI).

We've seen this before, and we'll see it again. If we hike our federal minimum wage to $25 per hour, half the small businesses will shutter while the other half replace us with automation.

And if you think that's a big hike for New Jersey, just imagine the damage it'll do in places that are at the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Yes, $7.25 is too low, but a jump $25 is absolutely ridiculous.

The above post reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 weekend host & content contributor Mike Brant. Any opinions expressed are his own.