Minimum wage hike closing Seattle restaurants

[davew]

Sen Murray from WA thinks this is so good, she is pushing for $12 national minimum wage

http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepol...-minimum-wage/


This is a nice start, but why think so small - $60 / hr makes it so easy to calculate, only $1/ minute....

[reckless]

One side says that an increase in the minimum wage is a benefit that increases wages and income. They add that this event will thrust the economy forward when these minimum wage earners will spend and spend increasing the country's GDP.

The other side says that an increase in the minimum wage is not a benefit and it is a reason why companies either lay off workers or even go out of business because of the higher labor costs.

Hmmm.... let's say for a second that both arguments have an some element of truth.

If the minimum wage is increased 10-20 per cent or even higher, let's say that this increase helps 25 per cent of the work force. Now, these workers will earn an alleged 'livable wage,' so says liberal advocates.

Yet, what if this mandatory wage increases hurts 25 per cent of the work force when workers lose their jobs or when companies go out of business.

What 'benefit' is now best for the country or to individual small businesses in question?

Is it the 25 per cent of the work force with a fatter paycheck, or is it the 25 per cent of the work force that lose their jobs?

[tucker6]

It is unproven and likely incorrect to assume that higher wages equals higher productivity of the worker, especially since most studies indicate that worker productivity is NOT tied to wages, but to technology and more altruistic needs such as customer service, team camaraderie, and helping people.

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by clocker

Also, 43% of the owners surveyed were Republican, while only 28% were Democrats. Despite this 61% favored an increase.


More nonsense. I can't believe that such a high percentage of business owners were Democrats.

You never believe anything that challenges your stilted world view.
http://nsba.biz/docs/Politics-Survey-2014.pdf
That is a link to a survey conducted by the National Small Business Administration. It does not address minimum wage. It does say that 39% of small business owners are Republican; 22% are Democrats and 29% are independent. While the percentages of Republicans and Democrats are lower than in the other survey, the proportions are not that much different,

As I pointed out, the survey does not directly address the topic of minimum wage, but it does ask the following;
IF YOU HAVE CONTACTED YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS ON A SMALL-BUSINESS ISSUE, WHAT
WERE THE ISSUES? (CHECK ALL THAT APPLY)
These were the responses.
Tax Reform 40% 45% 23%
Controlling Costs of Health Care 39% 44% 27%
A local issue 35% 34% 36%
Regulatory Reform 28% 29% 19%
Small-Business Contracting 26% 25% 31%
Deficit Reduction and Entitlement Reform 22% 26% 10%
Immigration Reform 16% 17% 16%
Other 16% 11% 22%
Improving Access to Capital 12% 9% 14%
Fair Labor/Union issues 11% 14% 10%
Tort reform/medical malpractice reform 11% 14% 4%
A casework issue involving my business 11% 10% 11%
SBA Lending Programs 10% 8% 14%
Exporting/Free Trade issues 9% 11% 9%
Energy efficiency for small business 7% 5% 13%
SBA Office of Advocacy 7% 6% 8%
SBIR Reauthorization 7% 3% 12%
White House Conference on Small Business 5% 4% 7%

Do you notice which issue is not there? The NSBA-a small business advocacy group-does not consider minimum wage an important enough issue to include it in a survey of its members. The members do not consider it enough of a problem to contact their representative about.

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by Clocker

Hundreds of years of universally accepted nonpartisan economic theory refuted in a single post.

Even the CBO agrees on this.

The only real debates are:

1. How much of a "net negative" is it?

2. Is it a good tradeoff to help many minimum wages workers who will get raises at a severe cost to some others who will lose jobs (and all the rest of us that have to pay higher prices).

[Thebart]

Before I jump to conclusions, I take a look at an alternative viewpoint such as this Seattle Times report

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by Thebart

Before I jump to conclusions, I take a look at an alternative viewpoint such as this Seattle Times report

Basically what your alternative viewpoint says is that conservatives are full of crap. Hope you don't mind if I quote a few of the comments from the article.

Renee Erickson is closing Boat Street Cafe, her first restaurant, but she runs three others and is in the process of opening two more. Asked in an email about the closure being associated with $15, she replied: “That’s weird, ha. No, that’s not why I’m closing Boat Street. Would have said so.”

Erickson continued, “I’m totally on board with the $15 min. It’s the right thing to do … Opening more businesses would not be smart if I felt it was going to hinder my success.”

Here is what the owners of Little Uncle said about the closing of their restaurant;
We were never interviewed for these articles and we did not close our … location due to the new minimum wage,” Kounpungchart and Frank said in an email. “We do not know what our colleagues are doing to prepare themselves for the onset of the new law, but pre-emptively closing a restaurant seven years before the full effect of the law takes place seems preposterous to us.”
They also sent a letter to the author of the Washington Policy Center post, telling him to keep his politics out of their business.

Shanik proprietor Meeru Dhalwala, who is also mentioned by Seattle Magazine, said in a Facebook message, “My closure is strictly due to location — nothing to do with wages.”

Finally,
Sharon Fillingim, the owner of Grub, the final restaurant referenced, said on Facebook that Grub was “a huge success.” In fact, the restaurant was sold and is reopening imminently under new ownership as Bounty Kitchen.

Finally-yes another finally-the article points out that the number of restaurant closings in Seattle is similar to the number in previous years and more restaurants are opening than closed.

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by reckless

What 'benefit' is now best for the country or to individual small businesses in question?

Is it the 25 per cent of the work force with a fatter paycheck, or is it the 25 per cent of the work force that lose their jobs?

It is neither. Your numbers are way off. Minimum wage earners are about 5% of the work force. If 25% of the work force lost their jobs every time we had a minimum wage increase, the country would be in a permanent Great Depression. The fact is that dozens of studies-over sixty-have established that an increase in the minimum wage has no significant effect on employment.

A lot of you folks keep referencing a CBO report which predicts a loss of 500,000 jobs if the minimum wage is raised to $10.10 over the next three years. That is a prediction. The studies I am talking about looked at what actually happened after the minimum wage was raised.

[tucker6]

Originally Posted by mostpost

Finally,
Sharon Fillingim, the owner of Grub, the final restaurant referenced, said on Facebook that Grub was “a huge success.” In fact, the restaurant was sold and is reopening imminently under new ownership as Bounty Kitchen.

So Sharon the owner says she found the everlasting money tree at Grub, but decided she was unworthy of such 'huge success', and so sold to someone else who promptly renamed it to diminish its goodwill. Got it.

... and I'm supposed to believe anything else she might say??

[tucker6]

Originally Posted by mostpost

A lot of you folks keep referencing a CBO report which predicts a loss of 500,000 jobs if the minimum wage is raised to $10.10 over the next three years. That is a prediction. The studies I am talking about looked at what actually happened after the minimum wage was raised.

Interesting. When the CBO 'predicted' a net gain for Obamacare in the beginning and we laughed at the numbers, weren't you the one who asked us to stop hating and get with the program?

[Clocker]

Originally Posted by mostpost

You never believe anything that challenges your stilted world view.

That was a joke about Democrats not running businesses. Sorry, I forgot liberals don't have a sense of humor. That's why there is such a heavy use of these by libs, to pretend they do understand humor.

I will be more "liberal" with my use of smilies in the future in deference to the humorously disadvantaged.

[Clocker]

Originally Posted by mostpost

The studies I am talking about looked at what actually happened after the minimum wage was raised.

You have posted raw data that usually shows an increase in minimum wage in one year is followed by little or no increase in CPI the next year. I have tried many times to explain the statistical and econometric flaws in your claims, to no avail. I won't try again. The data you post is worse than meaningless, it is dangerous, should anyone ever believe you. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

[Tom]

Conservative
Rich conservative
Liberal
47 percenter

[Clocker]

Originally Posted by mostpost

A lot of you folks keep referencing a CBO report which predicts a loss of 500,000 jobs if the minimum wage is raised to $10.10 over the next three years. That is a prediction.

CBO predictions are based on statistical models of the historic causal relation between variables. If they are predicting that an increase in minimum wages will result in a decrease in jobs, it is because they have found a statistically significant correlation between wages and jobs in the historical data.

[mostpost]

Originally Posted by tucker6

Interesting. When the CBO 'predicted' a net gain for Obamacare in the beginning and we laughed at the numbers, weren't you the one who asked us to stop hating and get with the program?

With Obamacare we had no history to look back at. CBO predictions were all we had and as it turns out they were pretty good.
For minimum wage. we have almost eighty years if history. We have studies based on that history. And we have a CBO study based on what if that contradicts those studies. A prediction of what is going to happen compared to the facts of what did happen.