Seattle's $15 minimum wage redux

[Cochise]

tldr version below:

...

Seattle became the first city in the nation to implement the $15 per hour minimum wage this past spring. Fox News reports that one unintended effect is that workers who are earning the higher wage are asking for fewer hours, so they can remain eligible for low income government benefits like childcare and tax credits.

Full Life Care, a home nursing nonprofit, told KIRO-TV in Seattle that several workers want to work less.

Local radio talk show host Jason Rantz on KIRO-FM noted the irony: “If [employees] cut down their hours to stay on those subsidies because the $15 per hour minimum wage didn’t actually help get them out of poverty, all you’ve done is put a burden on the business and given false hope to a lot of people.”

“Despite a booming economy throughout western Washington, the state’s welfare caseload has dropped very little since the higher wage phase began in Seattle in April. In March 130,851 people were enrolled in the Basic Food program. In April, the caseload dropped to 130,376,” according to Fox News.

...

“Some restaurants have tacked on a 15 percent surcharge to cover the higher wages. And some managers are no longer encouraging customers to tip, leading to a redistribution of income. Workers in the back of the kitchen, such as dishwashers and cooks, are getting paid more, but servers who rely on tips are seeing a pay cut,” Fox News reported.

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Earlier this year, as the implementation of the minimum wage law loomed, Seattle Magazine noted that something appeared to be afoot affecting the restaurant industry in the city, asking: “Why Are So Many Seattle Restaurants Closing Lately? “Seattle foodies [are] downcast,” the magazine reported

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The magazine went on to report that one “major factor affecting restaurant futures in our city is the impending minimum wage hike.” Anthony Anton, president and CEO of the Washington Restaurant Association, told the magazine: “It’s not a political problem; it’s a math problem.” He estimates that restaurants usually have a budget breakdown of about 36 percent for labor, 30 percent for food costs, and 30 percent to cover other operational costs. That leaves 4 percent for a profit margin. When labor costs shoot up to, say 42 percent, something has to give.

Shah Burnham is just one Seattle restaurant owner who believes that keeping her doors open is no longer worth it. She owns a popular Z Pizza restaurant location and says that even though her one store only has 12 employees, she’s considered part of the Z Pizza franchise — a large business. So she has to give raises within the next two years. “Small businesses in the city have up to six more years to phase in the new $15 an hour minimum wage,” according to Seattle’s Fox News 13.

“I know that I would have stayed here if I had 7 years, just like everyone else, if I had an even playing field,” she says. “The discrimination I’m feeling right now against my small business makes me not want to stay and do anything in Seattle.”

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The Heritage Foundation notes the minimum wage is usually for new workers, with a low percentage of Americans receiving it. The organization also points out some other interesting statistics:

Over half of minimum-wage earners are between the ages of 16 and 24.
Two-thirds of minimum-wage workers earn raises within a year—without the government’s help.
Only 2.9 percent of wage earners earn the federal minimum wage.
Most minimum-wage earners are teenagers or young adults, not heads of families.
Two-thirds work part time (defined as less than 35 hours a week).
Two-thirds of minimum-wage workers live in families with incomes above 150 percent of the poverty line.
Just 4 percent of minimum-wage workers are single parents working full time, compared to 5.6 percent of all U.S. workers.

http://www.westernjournalism.com/sea...ent=2015-08-04

[Loneiguana]

As is typical with hit pieces against the minimum wage, this isn't exactly honest.

For example, Z pizza is closing stores nationwide.




Gee, the wage hike is so enormous it's taking out franchises as far away as Virginia!

This means something!

But yet they try to use this one restaurant as if it means anything. There are probably a dozen pizza restaurants with in walking distance of this one operating under the same wage laws doing just fine. Blaming the law for failing where others who follow they succeed is pure "personal responsibility" Good on Fox news for pointing this owner.

[BucEyedPea]

I'm beginning to think you get email alerts when there's a min wage or related thread posted.

[Loneiguana]

Originally Posted by BucEyedPea

I'm beginning to think you get email alerts when there's a min wage or related thread posted.

You can do that?

[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by BucEyedPea

People get paid based on their marginal value productivity. You're not lucky or blessed. Your pay is likely based on that. You likely did things to put you in that category too. It should be for others instead of sympathy that others just need more.

That isn't true. People don't get paid based on their value. Their ceiling is based on their value, but their pay is based on the least amount of money someone will accept.

Let's say I produce X amount of revenue for my company, and they pay me 75% of X. If another person comes along and can also produce X amount of value but will do the job for 50% of X, my value didn't change, but my pay sure will.

If pay matched marginal value productivity, wages would increase at the same rate productivity has. The theory only works if everyone has equal access to all information. In reality, employers have the upper hand.

Every business that doesn't go under despite increasing wages because of this law is a business that was paying workers less than their value. If a ton of businesses close down, we will know that actual value was below $15/hr. Otherwise, you're going to see other cities follow their lead because it means that employers are artificially depressing wages via a soft form of collusion.

[suzzer99]

Originally Posted by Loneiguana

As is typical with hit pieces against the minimum wage, this isn't exactly honest.

For example, Z pizza is closing stores nationwide.




Gee, the wage hike is so enormous it's taking out franchises as far away as Virginia!

This means something!

But yet they try to use this one restaurant as if it means anything. There are probably a dozen pizza restaurants with in walking distance of this one operating under the same wage laws doing just fine. Blaming the law for failing where others who follow they succeed is pure "personal responsibility" Good on Fox news for pointing this owner.

Z Pizza is great if you need to clean out your colon within 30 minutes of eating it. Taste wise not so much.

[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by Loneiguana

As is typical with hit pieces against the minimum wage, this isn't exactly honest.

For example, Z pizza is closing stores nationwide.




Gee, the wage hike is so enormous it's taking out franchises as far away as Virginia!

This means something!

But yet they try to use this one restaurant as if it means anything. There are probably a dozen the pizza restaurants with in walking distance of this one operating under the same wage laws doing just fine. Blaming the law for failing where others who follow they succeed is pure "personal responsibility" Good on Fox news for pointing this owner.

I found 5 restaurants with the word Pizza in their name in the same 98122 zip code alone. If you expand search to within 5 miles, there are 20+.

[Cochise]

Originally Posted by eDave

Minimum has been raised before. We survived.

So why not make it $30 an hour?

[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by Cochise

So why not make it $30 an hour?

Why not take everything to its ridiculous extreme?

[Cochise]

Originally Posted by Saul Good

Why not take everything to its ridiculous extreme?

Well, if raising the minimum wage results in more money for everyone and it won't hurt businesses then why stop at $15?

[Loneiguana]

Originally Posted by Cochise

Well, if raising the minimum wage results in more money for everyone and it won't hurt businesses then why stop at $15?

Drinking 6 glasses of water a day is healthy. Why then is drinking 50 gallons a day unhealthy? You can't explain that!

[Saul Good]

Originally Posted by Cochise

Well, if raising the minimum wage results in more money for everyone and it won't hurt businesses then why stop at $15?

This is such a tired, lazy argument.

Everyone in society other than the extremest of the extreme fringe agrees that complete, unfettered capitalism doesn't work in the real world. We've tried something pretty close to it, and we got kids working in mines, workers dying on the job, lead paint in children's' toys, slave labor, etc. etc. etc.

Everyone in society other than the extremest of the extreme fringe also agrees that a completely managed economy doesn't work in the real world, either, though.

Those who aren't intellectually lazy are continuously trying to find a balance between the two poles. Walking around going "hurr durr...why not $1,000,000 an hour minimum wage" literally accomplish nothing. All they do is get in the way of people who are working to find solutions to the problem that is full time employees of businesses requiring government assistance because their wages are so low.

The same businesses complaining about the government interfering sure don't turn away customers who receive government assistance. They don't turn away employees who are only qualified to work there because of their public educations or their degrees that were subsidized through federal grants, loans, etc. Just as I can find a new place to work if I don't like our corporate policies, these businesses are free to pack up stakes and move somewhere that has less governmental regulation. And maybe they will.

That's the great thing about this. We don't have to take sides. We can simply watch the local economy in Seattle do its thing. Isn't that what conservatives want...decentralized governance? Or do we just want it when the local governments in Seattle do what conservatives in Kansas and Missouri think is best for them (because obviously we know better how to run Seattle than the citizens of Seattle)?

Just let it play out and see what we can learn. If it works, great! Let's expand on the success. If it fails, fine. Let's learn from their mistakes. Making lazy arguments does absolutely nothing other than to drive political discourse deeper into the gutter, and you're better than that.

[stevieray]

Originally Posted by Saul Good

and you're better than that.

[Fish]

If the min wage increase is getting those people over the poverty line so that they must either decide between work and government assistance, then that's a good thing. That should be the result. If lazy people would rather not work and rely on government assistance, and are allowed to do that, then that's a problem with government assistance, and not the minimum wage. Address the broken government assistance program that allows them to choose to be lazy.

[Saul Good]

I noticed that Stevie was the last poster on three straight threads in DC, so I checked them to see what kind of wisdom he was dishing out this morning.

Originally Posted by stevieray

Q

Originally Posted by stevieray

body cams for the outside agencies!

Originally Posted by stevieray

I wasn't surprised.

[blaise]

According to Loneiguana the mimimum wage should be enough for a single mother of two to be able to pay for rent, child care and all other expenses - without any child support payments from the father or government assistance - on 40 hours a week.
That probably would be closer to $30 an hour than $15 in a place like Seattle.