Posted on 01/30/2016 12:57:16 PM PST by Jim W N
Washington, D.C., is beginning to look like a cautionary example of what can happen when bastions of liberalism throw caution to the wind in raising the minimum wage.
As IBD recently reported, the nation's capital is now losing about 700 jobs a year at restaurants, hotels and other leisure and hospitality sector venues. That's a sharp reversal from the gain of 2,000 such jobs per year the city was enjoying before it hiked the minimum wage by 27%, first from $8.25 to $9.50 an hour in July 2014 and then to $10.50 in July 2015.
Now, as D.C. employers brace for yet-another minimum-wage hike to $11.50 set for this coming July, Wal-Mart (WMT)has called off two of the city's most-prized retail developments.
On Friday, Wal-Mart said it would close 154 stores in the U.S., mostly small-format locations...[and] it won't go forward with plans for two huge stores that were expected to create hundreds of new jobs in one of the city's poorer sections.
If America's largest private employer is struggling with its own pay increases, how will other businesses cope with even larger minimum-wage hikes? D.C.'s job losses are a warning sign. Its loss of restaurant jobs stands in stark contrast to the employment gains being seen outside the District, noted American Enterprise Institute economist Mark Perry.
Wal-Mart officials also expressed concern about the drive for a ballot initiative that would hike the city's minimum wage to $15 an hour. Further, the City Council is debating a plan for one of the most generous paid family and medical leave policies in the country, which would further add to compensations costs. Other legislation would limit Wal-Mart's flexibility in scheduling workers, with 20-hour-per-week minimums.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Also Closing store in Oakland, CA for the same reason:
http://dailysignal.com/2016/01/22/oaklands-minimum-wage-is-up-wal-mart-is-out/
No, no, no....you got it half-wrong. Just repeal it at the federal government. If D.C. or other communities or states want to hike it and commit suicide, who cares?
Economic ignoramuses wreck economies with impunity.
Why are so many on FR, a supposedly right-thinking site, so confused about things like the utterly unconstitutional and utterly destructive federal minimum wage. They understand neither true constitutional law nor the laws of economics as seen especially in the workings of the free market.
Ironic that most of the people pushing this will be the ones most negatively affected.
It’s also constitutional ignoramuses. Together they spell death to our free way of life. That’s why true education and knowledge (not Leftist brainwashing) was so important to our Founders.
I thought that “hamburger flipper” jobs weren’t real jobs. At least, it worked that way during the Pres. Bush years.
As someone else posted elsewhere...the real minimum wage is zero.
Every time the government increases the minimum wage real people lose their job. It also closes entry level jobs blocking those that want to work from finding work.
The forces of nature will adjust to the forces of government. Business will relocate or die.
I think I said repeal the FEDERAL minimum wage.
And you get what so many don’t. The local governments of the states are run by the people of that locality and you and I are free to move to another state or locality that better fits our way of life.
“Why are so many on FR, a supposedly right-thinking site, so confused about things like the utterly unconstitutional and utterly destructive federal minimum wage. They understand neither true constitutional law nor the laws of economics as seen especially in the workings of the free market.”
Well, FWIW, I’ve never understood how the goverment had any legitimate authority to set a minimum wage for private businesses. Seems to me to violate the Constitution, but what the hell, both parties seem to think what’s contained in it are merely “suggestions.”
The NEA has accomplished its #1 goal: the dumbing down of America.
Common sense right? What’s happened to common sense, especially on sites like FR, where truth and common sense should be the rule not the exception.
The Dems would rather have people dependent on welfare than working.
Proving once again that the true minimum wage is zero.
Unlike the Leftist mantra, an unconstitutional SCOTUS decision does not change the Constitution. The Constitution is the RULER of the feds including SCOTUS (Art VI, Cl 2 -the “Supremacy Clause”).
We don’t “adjust” to unconstitutional federal acts which by definition are acts of tyranny. We either fight or our freedom dies and we with it.
You did say “federal,” but the article is talking about D.C., so they are free to hike the minimum wage above and beyond the federal law.
Wait, I thought Lefties hated Wal-Mart?
Now all those mom-and-pop and five-and-dime stores can continue to employ their workers at $30 hour + full benefits.
That train left the station before you were born.
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