Minimum wage regs to cost $500 million over next five years

The Hill reports:

Regulations proposed this week to lift the minimum wage for federal contractors will cost employers and taxpayers an estimated $100 million next year and just over $500 million by 2019, according to the Obama administration.

A Labor Department analysis of the rule’s economic impact, however, concludes that the increased expense will be offset by a range of benefits, including reduced absenteeism, improved worker morale and productivity, reduced supervisory costs and better government services.

“The Department believes that the long term cost savings to employers and the Federal Government justify the short-term costs that would be incurred,” the agency said in its 181-page draft rule unveiled this week.

The agency did not assign a dollar value to those projected benefits.