EDITORIAL : A BAD ECONOMIC PLAN TAXPAYERS NEED THRIFTY GOVERNMENT, NOT A LIVING-WAGE ORDINANCE.

HERE, in 25 words or less, is all you need to know about the proposed living-wage ordinance that would force many Los Angeles businesses and nonprofits to pay a higher minimum wage to their employees:

One of the organizations pushing the ordinance was in court last year trying to exempt itself from paying its workers the state minimum wage.

That's right, it's the old ``do as we say and not as we do.''

That group - ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - eventually dropped its lawsuit (in which it claimed that the minimum wage law would raise its costs and reduce the number of people it could afford to employ).

Now, ACORN keeps busy with other things, like the L.A. coalition for a higher minimum wage - a share-the-wealth movement that claims there would be almost no negative consequences if employers are forced to pay more. In reality, of course, it would lead to higher prices and send a clear anti-business message to companies thinking of locating here.

We defend the coalition's right to advocate its belief, but the plan is flawed and the City Council should reject it for any number of reasons:

Nobody knows its cost. One study suggests the ultimate impact could reach $100 million.

Costs already are climbing. Congress recently raised the national minimum wage, and then state voters lifted California's minimum wage to an even higher level in November.

No one knows how many jobs the ordinance would affect. Supporters say it's a few thousand, but it's probably in the tens of thousands at least. All businesses and other organizations with city contracts, or receiving city assistance (such as enterprise zone subsidies or development loans) would have to pay their bottom-rung workers at least $7.25 an hour plus health benefits, or $8.50 an hour without benefits.

No one knows the effect on the city budget. Supporters say a similar ordinance in Baltimore, Md., didn't increase that city's contract costs because businesses absorbed the higher payroll costs. They predict the same will happen here. If that's true, it shows how much fat is in city contracts now, and the need for cost-cutting.

With seven of the 15 council members up for re-election in April, the public should insist that they state their position on the ordinance.

Thousands of minimum-wage workers won't get raises under this proposal, yet they are L.A. taxpayers, too. The council should consider them and, behaving like responsible stewards of scarce public funds, allow the market to determine appropriate wages.