Seattle’s Wage Mandate Kills Restaurants

Minimum wage must go up it is a necessity just like businesses raise prices when costs go up...

 

And if a person is willing to work for tips and get nothing, he/she can't then turn around and complain about his/her predicament.

 

Tip is only "expected" because you've been brainwashed into thinking so. Why should restaurants be able to get away with not paying the state mandated minimum wage to their wait staff?

 

I agree with you in principal but that isn't the way it works in the US. You are expected to tip. Full stop.
If waiters were guaranteed a minimum and customers were not expected to tip I'd be fine with it. I doubt the waitstaff would be though.

 

We've been down this road before (this tip discussion). That the wait staff is ok or not ok is not my problem. There is a law that if the tips aren't adequate to make a wait staff whole, the owner will have to make up for the rest.

 

You do know good waitress can make $50,000 grand or more working part time correct?

 

It sounds like those people need different jobs.

 

Today on CNBC they did a brief segment on restaurants in Seattle closing up,the two owners blamed the HIGH COSTS of their property rentals more than the wage hikes since they both said they were paying over $15 per hour prior to the law change.

 

The min wage is 7.25 and has been 7.25 for 10 years. Unbelievable that people argue it should be kept. People rather see families border on starvation and cold than pay another 25 cents for a burger.

 

Don't hold your breath.

 

25 cents for a hamburger, 12 cents for potato chips, 50 cents for socks, 8 cents for cereal, 10 cents for a car wash..


Those pennies add up to $50 bucks or more a week.

 

Adding $3 to minimum wage adds only a few pennies for a hamburger, potato chips,. Socks add 50 cents? What are these Trump Special Super Socks? If it drives a price for a car wash, just how often do you wash your car? 10 cents a week does not add to more than $50 or more for a minimum wage that still doesn't to that.

 

Still dont want to admit all those pennies add up to probably $50 bucks more per week? Minimum wage is just a tax on the rest of us.

 

You don't get that margins are already razor thin in the restaurant business? If they could charge 25 cents more for a burger they would be doing that already, not that it would entitle workers a higher wage.

 

If profits are so razor thin how come so many open every year. Well run restaurants make money. Depressing wages as a fudge factor is not a solution for better management. I think the increase in purchasing power will create a bigger demand for "cheap" food, than would be lost due to less volume. If you give 5000 workers a $5.00 per hour wage how many more quick service meals do you think they would buy? Poor people spend all their money in the immediate area, that money circulates in that area.

Hell down south and in the rust belt you give a husband and wife $5 more per hour each that is 20,000 a year that is letting them buy a house and anyone knows what an economic engine that is. Poor people buy old cars that need work, old houses that need work, they don't buy one 5000 sofa from restoration hardware but will furnish their whole house with that. They don't buy a $3000 sub zero refrer but every household appliance in that house for that amount which creates a hell of a lot more jobs than one refrer and one couch.

 

You give $5 bucks to 500 people that is one thing

But $5 to 50 million people. you are not doing anything, it's just trickle up poor, everything will eventually be the same as today in.buying power

 

And who pays for that extra 20k per family???? There's no free lunch. If the free market is working then margins ARE thin. Increase the marginal cost on a product and the price of the good increases and output decreases. And you think this is good for the poor? Good for businesses? Creates jobs? I want some of what you're smoking.

 

+40% earn less than 15 bucks an hour = there are no different jobs. Just other managers who with governmental food stamp aid get to underpay their staff so they can earn more. The bill of the food stamps must be billed to them managers who exploit the tax payers.

 

You've been using this fallacious line of reasoning for too long. Stop it. It isn't the business's fault that the cost of labor is what it is. They aren't "underpaying" anyone!
What do you think is a fair wage and how should it be calculated?

 

Well you won't give $5 to 50 mill people, it is 5 to those making 8 now. if you make $13 you get $2 etc. and you seem to think that the people who make 20% of all the wages in the US are going to affect the prices in the same ratio when The 80% of all income is not affected. An increase of 50% to those 10% of our workforce population that makes under 15,000 grand a year would be about a 2% increase in money to be spent. Hell the 25% of our population who make 100-200K a year spend more disposable money in a month than they spend in a year. month.

I can understand the right not wanting to give out handouts, food stamps, subsidies etc to people who don't work. But to spend 1% of our national gdp to bring 20% of our nations working families great relief is unconsciousable.

 

Companies make billions, them 1% of the managers make millions. The government is draining the middle class to pay for food stamps. Plenty of people who work full time still get food stamps. Hence that food stamp bill should be billed to the companies and managers, instead of Joe the Plumber. And you need to stop demanding people who work should go hungry, you need to stop demanding the food stamp bill must be placed at the middle class so managers and companies can make their millions and billions. That's just not fair.

 

WTF does this have to do with anything? Labor is a f%^king resource, it's cost determined by the market. Should a company making billions have to pay more for their electricity use? Or transportation?
Anyway, this bullshit doesn't even apply to, like, 100% of the businesses we're discussing. I guarantee there's not a single restaurant in Seattle pulling in billions.

 

It has to do with...
The government is draining the middle class to pay for food stamps. Plenty of people who work full time still get food stamps. Hence that food stamp bill should be billed to the companies and managers, instead of Joe the Plumber. And you need to stop demanding people who work should go hungry, you need to stop demanding the food stamp bill must be placed at the middle class so managers and companies can make their millions and billions. That's just not fair.

 

Non sequitur. Go ahead and keep this naive view, I don't care.

 

Not seeing any argument why it's non sequitur.