The Times Editorial Board
Jan 30, 2018
From acts of Congress to local government ordinances, lawmakers from all levels should be willing to put their codified policies to the test.
In that vein, the Indiana Legislature should push for an empirical review of the General Assembly’s 2015 repeal of the common construction wage statute.
Whether the law remains off Indiana’s books or put back on, the decision should be made on statistical evidence and hard data, not political ideologies.
In a recent report provided to The Times, the Midwest Economic Policy Institute concluded that following the common wage repeal, Hoosier construction workers earned less than they did before, with no meaningful cost savings for Indiana taxpayers.
The law had been seen by proponents as a sort of guaranteed minimum wage for construction workers.
Opponents of the ultimately repealed law, including former Gov. Mike Pence, argued eliminating the county minimum pay rates for public works projects would save the state and local government agencies money without reducing construction workers’ paychecks. Drawing on U.S. Department of Labor statistics for the four quarters before and after the law was repealed, the institute concluded Hoosier construction wages fell by an average of 8.5 percent after the repeal.
The lowest-paid workers saw their paychecks fall by an average of 15 percent, according to the institute.
Construction wages in neighboring Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, meanwhile, grew a combined 2.8 percent.
The institute also reported the repeal didn’t contribute to more competition for public works projects, among other findings, and thus didn’t lead to measurable savings.