All Michigan employers — private, nonprofit and public — had to prepare for changes to minimum wages and paid sick leave rules that would have gone into effect on Feb. 21. Then legislators changed those rules at the last minute to mitigate their expected harms.
How much did it cost to prepare for a law that never went into effect?
It’s not the kind of question that has an easy answer. There’s no reporting on the legal costs to comply with changes in employment law.
But here are some numbers to put the economic damage into context.
There are 175,075 firms in Michigan, not including governments, according to the latest numbers from the Census Bureau. Some of those are likely to be firms that don’t employ anyone, but at least 102,005 of them employ five or more employees, so the majority are employers subject to the new rules.
There are 2,860 governments in Michigan, according to the latest numbers from the Census Bureau. It’s unclear how many are government units that don’t have any employees.
The average lawyer charges clients $250 an hour. Let’s say that all of Michigan’s labor lawyers are quick and can provide answers to employers in only two hours.
That comes to 177,935 potential employers getting charged $500, for a total cost of $89 million.
This seems high. Many companies belong to industry groups, local associations and other groups that keep an eye on what Lansing does and offer legal advice to their members. Not all employers need to hire a lawyer to answer their...
The Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) strongly denied unfounded allegations that the sacks of bones recovered by its divers from Taal Lake were planted in connection with the case of the long-lost cock...