Readers React: The time is right for a minimum wage boost

To the editor: The belief of some business leaders that raising the minimum wage to $13.25 an hour in Los Angeles “would lead to layoffs, cutbacks in workers’ hours and price increases to maintain profits” is an argument not for keeping wages stagnant but for taking higher wages out of profits. (“Garcetti calls for $13.25 minimum wage by 2017,” Sept. 1)

Corporate profits currently make up more than 10% of the gross domestic product; there is plenty of capital for investment, and the cost of borrowing is low. Business should take advantage of these conditions to invest in the workforce — and reap real profits down the line.

Mary Bomba, Los Angeles

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To the editor: While Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has urged the City Council to support raising the minimum hourly wage to $13.25 so that fast-food workers, maids and other unskilled laborers can support their families from work that used to be regarded as “starter jobs” for students, neither politicians nor the media have addressed the potential impact on illegal immigration this enormous rise in the basic hourly wage will have.

I predict that a new wave of undocumented, unschooled and unskilled immigrants will flood our borders for such a lucrative wage increase, which represents several times the basic hourly wage south of our border and, in some parts of the world, an entire day’s pay.

Remember the law of unintended consequences.

Alan V. Weinberg, Woodland Hills