Wow, what oracle could have seen this coming?



Small business owners across the country are beginning to feel the pinch as more states move toward a $15 minimum wage.

While proposals to raise pay are intended to help workers, several mom-and-pop coffee shops as well as restaurants are responding by cutting hours, eliminating jobs or closing down entirely because they can't keep up with rising wages under the law.

It's the ugly side to the highly touted wage hikes, economists say, adding that the bumps can unleash a "payroll tsunami" for smaller businesses already stretched thin from rising rents and soaring health care costs.

"For some of these businesses, the minimum wage hikes tip the balance between staying in business and going out of business," Panos Mourdoukoutas, professor of economics at LIU Post in New York, wrote in Forbes.

Boston's iconic restaurant Durgin-Park in Faneuil Hall was forced to shutter its doors in January after nearly two centuries in business. The owners said they couldn't keep up with the wages and health care premium hikes.

“We’d been thinking about [closing] for the last year,” Michael Weinstein, CEO of Ark Restaurants, which purchased Durgin-Park in 2007, told Boston.com. “First of all, our landlords are terrific. It’s an expense problem that we’ve been facing. We [own] several venues across the country that are facing a minimum wage increase. As part of that, we’re facing an increase in liability, property and health insurance.”

After winning her House race last year, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., "swung by" to say goodbye to the Coffee Shop in Union Square where she used to work.

She tweeted: "The restaurant I used to work at is closing its doors. I swung by today to say hi one last time, and kid around with friends like old times."

What she didn't say is that the popular coffee shop was closing its doors because it couldn't afford the $15 minimum pay raise that Ocasio-Cortez has gone on to strongly support.

“The times have changed in our industry,” co-owner Charles Milite told The New York Post. “The rents are very high and now the minimum wage is going up and we have a huge number of employees.”

The American Action Forum calculates that minimum wage hikes will kill 261,000 jobs -- with most of the losses concentrated in New York and California.

In just the last three months of last year, 4,000 workers lost jobs at full-service restaurants, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show. By the end of last year, there were fewer restaurant workers in New York than in November 2016, according to Investor's Business Daily.

Last month, Maryland became the sixth state in the nation to approve a gradual minimum wage increase to $15 an hour. The American Action Forum predicts the move could cost the state 94,600 jobs.

"For perspective, this is equivalent to eliminating nearly 50 percent of projected job growth between 2016 and 2026," Ben Gitis, director of labor market policy at American Action Forum, wrote. "Maryland is not in a strong position to absorb this shock, as it continued to experience below-average job growth while the state implemented its previous minimum wage hike from 2014 to 2018."

But supporters argue the hikes are needed to address income inequality and also keep up with inflation. The issue has been widely embraced by Democratic candidates on the presidential campaign trail, with several backing a bill to raise the wage to $15 an hour at the federal level.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., a sponsor, has called the current minimum wage a "starvation wage."

California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York all have approved a $15 minimum wage, as has the District of Columbia. Phoenix employees are on track for the hourly pay bump on May 1. In all, there are 20 states that have or will move toward a $15 wage.



https://www.foxnews.com/politi...urt-small-businesses

It doesn't matter what actually happens. The idea feels good.

Make it $100, why not?

And if they can stay in business, all of the costs will be passed on to the consumer...

Economic laws don't care about libs feelings.

So what you are trying to say is economics happened.

I want minimum staffing requirements!

I don't see why we need any minimum wage laws. If person A wants to hire person B to do something for $X. What's the problem as long as they both agree to it? Why is the government concerned with this at all?

sucks to be the employees but its the right answer

socialism has triumphed once again by crushing small businesses and leaving unemployment and downstream problems in its wake

the politicians need to be held accountable, and until that happens nothing will ever change

make them responsible for the failures - not the business owners

quote:

forced to shutter its doors in January after nearly two centuries in business. The owners said they couldn't keep up with the wages and health care premium hikes.

this has got to be one hell of a story

Once again we see that government intervention into private business is a total failure.

As already pointed out, there are business that will be able to absorb the increase in costs but they will cover this by automation, reduced lower level job positions, part time employees and/or increased prices passed on to the consumer. These minimum wage workers, will have a few more bucks in their pocket but they will quickly see that extra cash fade because of rising prices.

Don't these wizards who are making such laws have any economic education. Of course not. And they don't give the slightest shit about minimum wage workers. All they want is power which they seek by giving away free shit to garner votes.

There was no reasoning or study behind chosing fifteen bucks as the target for the new minimum, just feelz. "Fight for 15" makes a good sounding slogan and looks good on a protest poster. It has no economic basis whatsoever.

I always find it amazing that libs can pull numbers out of their ass, but can't manage to do the same with their heads.

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
And if they can stay in business, all of the costs will be passed on to the consumer...

Maybe. I have a feeling the group of consumers here would rather just not patronize businesses which increased their prices because of wage increases mandated by the government. Do we really need to dine out so much? Nope.

quote:

Originally posted by signewt:

quote:

forced to shutter its doors in January after nearly two centuries in business. The owners said they couldn't keep up with the wages and health care premium hikes.

this has got to be one hell of a story

My exact thoughts. A lot of stuff (wars, depressions, recessions, riots) happened over 200 years and a few progressives killed it over a very short period of time.

quote:

Originally posted by Jim Shugart:
I don't see why we need any minimum wage laws. If person A wants to hire person B to do something for $X. What's the problem as long as they both agree to it? Why is the government concerned with this at all?

Minimum wage laws are completely unconstitutional at the Federal level, and asinine at the state level. The government has 'zero' authority under the Constitution to set wage rates. And I especially love this little nugget of mental retardation by leftist morons.

quote:

But supporters argue the hikes are needed to address income inequality...

So, they're trying to address income inequality by raising the minimum wage which results in fewer people actually having jobs. So isn't inequality greater when someone makes $0/hr, versus making something less than $15/hr? Help me out here given I only have two bachelor's degrees with majors in Accounting and Finance, with a minor in Economics.

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
And if they can stay in business, all of the costs will be passed on to the consumer...

Maybe. I have a feeling the group of consumers here would rather just not patronize businesses which increased their prices because of wage increases mandated by the government. Do we really need to dine out so much? Nope.

Come on dude. I know you'd be all in for a $11 Big Mac and a $4 Coke to accommodate government stupidity.

quote:

After winning her House race last year, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., "swung by" to say goodbye to the Coffee Shop in Union Square where she used to work

This stupid bitch is oblivious to the fact that her support for socialist equality contributed to killing her previous employers business. Next she’ll be blaming Trump, Republicans, and fat cat capitalists.

Reading the article, it's high rents that are a large factor in increased costs / lower profits too- or a reason why the particular restaurant is closing. The increase in minimum wage is just icing on the preverbal cake.

I wonder how many of you really are aware of the decrease in wages (even often when one does not factor in inflation) for many once good paying blue and white collar jobs?

Globalization, technology and the ever increasing need to increase stock prices have lead to the laborer, blue and white collar to lose out.

I personally am looking at a minimum 20 pct to 60 pct reduction in salary and in over half the cases this does not even factor in the loss of benefits. This is if I can even get a job in my IT field or something close to it. Used to make in the low 100K's per year, but my role was found to be an impediment to increased corporate profitability.

Wonder why lots of today's youth look to socialism as a solution? Think that perhaps their parents losing their jobs not because of incompetence, but because their salary impeded increased corporate profitability has perhaps something to do with their current thinking?

It will be a very cold day in hell, before I vote democrat, in my current circumstance, but then I am better off than most in my boat, at least for the near term. I could survive on 13.25 per hour with health benefits if need be, with a little 4 figure annual dividend income I have.

If you are still reading, what I find humorous is the the party of unimpeded immigration (and this includes much of the Republican side too), then demands increased minimum wage. Sort of goes against the rules of supply and demand, eh?

We need to stop the supply, at least for jobs which cannot cost effectively be outsourced overseas (unlike IT jobs and others).

Based on too much free time and reading old U.S. high school / college history books, the 1990's to now, is much like the 1890's to 1922 (when the immigration spigot was turn off hard).

It's easy to yell, 'Stupid government increasing the minimum wage' while forgetting that the same government is enabling corporate America to depress wages legally in other ways by allowing corporate America manipulation of the labor supply and demand curves in their great favor.

IT wages were flat last year, in a supposedly booming labour market. Looks like there is still too much IT labour supply available, either domestically or internationally; probably both.

You show up at my work with a CDL and at least two years experience, and I'll hire you yesterday starting at $22/hr. The market should determine the minimum wage, not politicians.

quote:

Originally posted by Bytes:

quote:

Originally posted by signewt:

quote:

forced to shutter its doors in January after nearly two centuries in business. The owners said they couldn't keep up with the wages and health care premium hikes.

this has got to be one hell of a story

My exact thoughts. A lot of stuff (wars, depressions, recessions, riots) happened over 200 years and a few progressives killed it over a very short period of time.

Recall eating there with my parents. Narrow staircase where you waited in line. Open fireplaces where meat was cooked. There was a tin ceiling, exposed wiring and they never took down the pipes for the gas lighting. While I don’t remember it, the waitstaff was encouraged to be “surly.”

It’s more then said to see such tradition and history lost.