I’m all for a vigorous public debate, so I certainly don’t mind letting restaurateurs air their views on a $15 minimum wage. But when Tom Douglas makes the alarming claim that Seattle could lose a quarter of its restaurants should a $15 minimum wage pass, I just think it is fair to point out that there’s no historical data to support it.
While our proposed 60 percent hike in the minimum wage is certainly steeper than most, it’s not the steepest. Thanks to 1988’s Initiative 518, Washington restaurants endured an even more imposing 85 percent increase in labor costs, and survived with no evidence of mass layoffs or mass business closures. Indeed, over the following decade, growth in restaurant employment actually outpaced total growth in employment statewide.
I’m not saying that a $15 minimum wage wouldn’t hurt some businesses. I’m just saying that there is no historical evidence to support the dire warnings of mass business closures.
This article has no data that doesn’t show this was a problem for restaurants. We’re just supposed to take at face value that nothing happened because employment increased? It doesn’t say anything about restaurants that went out of business.
Also, it was 1989, not 1998.
finally, this shows to me that the minimum wage is a shitty way out of poverty. If that worked so well, wouldn’t poverty have gone down.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t raised the minimum wage, I am just saying this doesn’t convince me.
@1
What did you just write? “This article has no data that doesn’t show this was a problem for restaurants”? Does that mean “This article has data showing that this restaurants had problems”?
Making Tacos is not worth $15 dollars an hour.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....87975.html
15 bucks should be nice for those who are not fired to compensate.
If you believe yglesias all we humanoids will be doing in 20 years will be making tacos (and, to be fair, burritos) so you all better hope it pays $15/hr.
Seattle, come for the Coffee…stay for the Communism.
There is also no data to support claims that a $15/hr minimum wage would help wage earners in the US. No state has ever had a $15/hr min wage.
17.5 trillion in debt and the CBO project 28 trillion by 2018 we could have paid everyone in the world $15 a hour 24 hrs a day to stay home.
Why don’t you do a little survey of fast food workers where you live. Ask them if having their pay boosted to $15/hr would help them. See if any say no. Then look them in the eye and tell them how much you make and why you think you are worth it. Oh, and be sure to do this before ordering your tacos.
Hi Ekim-
Don’t expect ChefJoe to make any more sense than the the Puddydummy.
He said he would lose 1/4 of his resturuants — not all resturuants.
What’s a “resturuant”?
Oh so sad. But then someone else will take over those stores, pay the $15/hr and still make a profit.
Why should we care about employers who don’t care about their employees?
Ekim, how do you like your rose colored glasses?
Hmmm… The CBO claims $15/hour would cause job loss…
Warren Buffett, liberally used by HA DUMMOCRETINS when they want to scream a point, is missing from this discussion…
rujax@10,
Good to see the dumbest brick in the HA DUMMOCRETIN hoard is still alive. ChefJoe is speculating on this proposal!
Too bad ylb, the crazed database deala is off its daily postings (thank God for that) is gone; because you are the dumbest HA DUMMOCRETIN book!
@16…
Fuck off, shithead.
There is no way that anyone can call themselves a successful business owner if they are paying poverty level wages (actually below poverty level wages when you think about it).
That means you’re good at running a sweatshop not a business. But hey! Congrats! You’re half a step above being a slave owner!! Good for you!!
@18: Not all business owners are Scrooge Mcduck.
I’d think there’d be an obvious way to deal with the “tipped staff” issue in much of the hospitality industry, particularly upscale establishments like Douglas runs. Simply count salary + tips as total pay (as the IRS does) and require the employer to guarantee a $15/hour minimum. It’s a pretty safe bet that if a member of the wait staff in a place like Palace Kitchen or Etta’s isn’t getting a -lot- more than $5 an hour in tips, either the establishment is failing anyway or the individual is doing a really crappy job.
@19 Did I say all of them were?
The minimum wage in WA was $3.35 when that passed in the late 80s. Federal law. States can’t pay below a federal mandate. So no on the 85% figure. Either a lack of understanding, or an intentional misrepresentation. Either way 85% is wrong in terms of the real increase people got. This was also statewide. So, not comparable to a 60% increase in a relatively small area.
@4 Neither is losing money for your shareholders, but that doesn’t keep CEOs from being paid millions.
@8 Well that’s your costly Republican wars for you.
Only wingnuts could argue that raising workers’ wages will make them poorer. Isn’t that more or less the same argument that Southern slave owners used?
Arizona’s finger-wagging governor is retiring.
@25…Oh some will make more…others won’t make anything.
@22 You’re wrong. Click through the link and read again. The state minimum wage of $2.30 was below the federal minimum wage, but above the federal minimum wage for tipped employees, and so served as the de facto minimum wage for tipped employees at the time I-518 was passed. Contemporaneous news accounts talk about this. So for tipped employees, the minimum wage rose from $2.30 to $4.25 over two years.
@28 Goldy, you are still making an apples and oranges argument. I stand corrected, but you are making a comparison between a categorical 60% raise in the minimum wage for all employees in the city, as compared to a similar minimum wage raise for a small sector of the economy, and for that matter, a fraction within a particular industry. To say that a 60% raise across the board in a dense municipality is not any more risky for any business than a similar raise in a small set of jobs in an overall state economy (WA) is simply disingenuous. This kind of strain on people’s credulity does nothing for your case and gives your opponents more grist.
And, if there there is “no data” on “massive closures” we also know that there is no data that this is “risk free” or even that there would not be significant closures. Your solution is to just go ahead, roll the dice and see what happens, with no analysis. That is poor public policy and what turns people off from supporting progressive steps to fixing the gap between rich and poor.