South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Employment

Corona Virus Donita Trump Noem Employment Kristi Noem

Most employers in South Dakota CAN mandate vaccinations

l3wis 13Comments

There has been a lot of back and forth in South Dakota about all of our FREEDOM and LIBERTY that our Box of Rocks Governor has been spouting about, and how she doesn’t support mandates. Unfortunately, Noem has no authority when it comes to private employer mandates. The state legislature would have to change state law in order to prohibit private employer mandates;

Employment relationships in South Dakota may be ‘terminated at will,’ which means an employer does not need a specific reason to fire an employee. This is the same concept as an employee not needing a specific reason to quit a job. Generally, the only exceptions to this rule are when: A contract for employment exists.

Of course, you do have the option to quit if you don’t want to get vaccinated, but you can’t prevent your employer from mandating it and neither can the governor. When authoritarians talk about all the FREEDOM we have here, they are referring to the ruling class, NOT us.

My suggestion is to just go get a shot or a doctor’s note if you are too high risk to get one and you don’t have to worry about your employer mandating it.

Employment Sioux Falls South Dakotans

Low wages in South Dakota? Get out!

l3wis 11Comments

As if this story is ground breaking. I do appreciate the update in our dismal wages, high regressive taxes, and high cost of housing, but this has been going on for decades;

State and federal data routinely show that:

  • South Dakota employers pay some of the lowest wages in the nation.
  • A high number of families pay an excessive portion of their income on housing.
  • The state has a regressive system of taxation.
  • Many workers are not seeing their pay cover the rising cost of living in the state.
  • Meanwhile, the state is seeing a sharp spike in the cost of housing and health care, two critical components of living a happy life.

I will admit over the past 5 years or so I was able to quit my part-time job and only work one full-time job and make a decent living wage. I am also debt free. But this didn’t come from not working hard. I worked around 60 hours a week for over 20 years and I have NO dependents. But sometimes I wonder how much better off I would be if I just got paid a decent wage.

When I moved to Sioux Falls in 1991 my first job paid around $4.20 an hour.

Let’s face it, as long as we keep electing Republican business owners to the legislature we will continue to have regressive sales taxes, low wages and unaffordable housing. We need a progressive state legislature that stands up for workers.

I know, I am dreaming.

I have suggested to Sioux Falls city councilors that they institute a wage listing ordinance that forces businesses to list there minimum/maximum wage in a job listing for the Sioux Falls metro. Research has shown that not only will employers pay more they will get better and more applicants. It’s not just a win for workers it is a win for businesses.

It’s time we stop screwing around, especially in Sioux Falls, and invest in our workers.

Employment Sioux Falls TIFs Unemployment

We need to stop incentivizing businesses with TIF’s and Tax rebates in Sioux Falls

l3wis 1Comments

As I said a few months ago, it was baffling to me why we would give a $94 million dollar TIF to incentivize businesses to come here. First off, it is pretty obvious we don’t need anymore job creators currently;

To find out more about what might be going on, I reached out to Secretary Marcia Hultman, who leads the South Dakota Department of Labor.

“What you are seeing and what we’re hearing anecdotally, the numbers really support,” she said.

They definitely do. The most current number she could pull for me Friday was 23,500 active job openings in the state’s database. Nearly 10,000 of those are in the city of Sioux Falls.

You read it correct, 10,000 available jobs in Sioux Falls, and we want to incentivize business to come here? It’s ludicrous. Factor in our schools are over crowded, affordable housing is a rarity (where we should be investing tax rebates) and building permits are through the roof. If anything we should be giving the tax rebates to the citizens to create more affordable housing and propping up our current infrastructure instead throwing it at Egg Roll factories owned by Koreans.

I also found this interesting in the article;

Another tip: You should list a wage with your opening.

“Statistically, if the wage is posted, even if it’s not the best, those job orders get more activity. If nothing is listed, the assumption is that it’s low,” Hultman said.

Nearly every business I talk to has increased pay, some significantly. Frankly, that’s not a bad thing, to me, in a state that has struggled with persistently low wages in some sectors.

I have often said the city council should pass a city ordinance that any job listed within city limits should have the minimum and maximum pay listed in the ad.

It’s time to end most if not all TIF’s in the city and tax rebates for the supposed (low wage) job creators and start helping the people who live and work in this city with more affordable housing and propping up infrastructure, and we can do it without welfare to big business. This is what happens when you have a partisan greedy mayor on cruise control and a former developer executive running the city as Chief of Staff.

Ironically, when she left the city the first time she met me for coffee. She told me the deciding factor to leave the city, besides the last mayor being a total jackass was that she was forced to write the Sanford Sports Complex TIF which she felt set a bad precedent for TIFs because of it’s size and that it was NOT for housing or blighted property. Funny how her feelings have changed on the Tifiliciousness of TIFs and doesn’t seem to bothered by the bad precedent she set.

Employment Minimum Wage Unemployment

The $15 an hour Minimum Wage is a Joke!

l3wis 7Comments

While some may be surprised that I do not support it, it is for other reasons. It should be $18-20 an hour and it should take affect within two years with four 6-month steps. There should also be an automatic inflationary COLA every year.

If they pass a Federal $15 an hour minimum wage, it won’t take fully affect until 2025. What’s the point?!

There is also a lot of misinformation out there about how this will kill businesses and cause mass unemployment. Not the case, when states have raised their minimum wages they did see an initial hike in unemployment, but in low wage jobs, after a year they actually saw economic growth and the GDP in the state rising. Believe it or not, when you pay people more, they spend more, and it helps the economy. What an amazing concept!

You also need to understand that this only affects large businesses who participate in interstate and international commerce. Like Walmart or Amazon. Ma an Pa’s Ice Cream Parlor in Bumf’ck Indiana won’t have to pay those wages.

And now for the obvious reasons this is the right thing to do. The large corporations who can afford an $18 an hour minimum wage, CAN AFFORD THE WAGE. They make Billions while paying very little Federal income taxes then turnaround and expect the very taxpayers who do pay their taxes (us) to subsidize their low-wage workers in the form of Medicade, SNAP and and housing. It was once estimated that because of the low wages Walmart pays its workers, EACH store costs taxpayers $1 million a year in worker subsidies. Why not just pay workers a living wage?

The upside is a boon in economic growth because instead of the top 1% sitting on all the wealth in our country, the workers would be spending it!

I guess I have never understood the argument that we need to starve workers while the top 1% sit on loads of money they will never be able to spend. It’s NOT a socialistic concept, it’s just good economics.

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