Posted on 12/13/2019 4:37:49 AM PST by karpov
This city’s minimum wage is rising to $16.39 an hour on Jan. 1. Instead of receiving a bigger paycheck, I’m left without any pay at all due to the policy change. That’s because the restaurant where I’ve worked for six years is closing as a consequence of the city’s harmful minimum-wage experiment.
I work for Tom Douglas, one of the best-known restaurateurs in Seattle. Mr. Douglas is in many ways responsible for the city’s reputation as a foodie paradise, and he recently celebrated his 30th anniversary in business. He’s a great boss, and his employees tend to stay at the company for a long time.
But being an established chef and a good employer doesn’t save you from the burden of a sharp minimum-wage increase, up 73% from $9.47 in 2015. For large-scale employers like Mr. Douglas, there’s no separate rate for workers who earn tips. In Washington and a handful of other states, tips aren’t counted as income earned on the job. That means restaurateurs are expected to pay servers like me the full minimum wage in addition to our considerable tip income.
When rent is too high, labor costs too much, and customers don’t want to pay $40 for a roast-chicken entree, the only way for many operators to ease the pain is to close.
So now, after six years working at Mr. Douglas’s restaurant Tanakasan, I need to find a new work home. My first thought was to go back to Sitka & Spruce, a restaurant where I had once worked. (I previously had to take on a second job there after the rising minimum wage forced Tanakasan to adopt a no-tipping payment model, drastically reducing my income.)
As it turns out, I can’t return to Sitka & Spruce. [It is closing too.]
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
“Post signs. “NO TIPS PLEASE. Waiter salaries now cover tips”
You’re missing the point, along with others in this area. Losing tips is a pay cut for restaurant employees. And the economy has grown so much since the early 90’s, falsely, that it will take a lot more to buy food and keep the heat on.
The problem is that politicians got into an area, again, they have no knowledge on the market and cash flow, and changed the financial pattern through manipulation and not free market. It happens every time.
It wasn’t broke......
rwood
I fully understand the point. I’m just suggesting to restauranteurs, a possible way to get by in the wake of retarded political turmoil.
I’m prepared to leave my own Marxist state of NY. Things have gotten even worse in the Pacific Northwest. Yes the answer is to remove scumbag politicians. But if your neighbors have a majority and are stupid you must find a way through it and/or eventually leave.
Seattle will “shut down” on its own eventually. Why delay the inevitable?
More people realizing that the democrat free lunch is anything but.
The government can’t fix anything but the restaurant business has been broke for a long time.
Tips originally were a bonus for great service, then owners started considering them part of wages. That was dealt with, people still tipped more for great service, a good waiter or waitress would make real money and those that were not good would “starve” and have to find a different career- that worked too. Then the decision to pool and share tips- horrible- then lousy staff and great staff essentially paid the same?
As a customer at this point I do wish tipping would just end. I have no problem with giving a good tip for great service, but the way it is done a lot now it doesn’t work that way.
Why’s that? LA is still Operating. San Francisco is still operating albeit with human detritus coating the streets and living in tents. What makes you think Seattle will shut down?
Strassel, Freeman, Jenkins, Henniger, Are well worth supporting. The news writers are not always so great but overall the WSJ is one of the good guys.
I’d be happier if they dumped Noonan of course.
“But if your neighbors have a majority and are stupid you must find a way through it and/or eventually leave.”
I live in Tacoma, about a half hour south of Seattle, at 2 a.m., on the I-5 corridor. I have watched business close up here for a number of years as taxes, zoning, and service policies controlled by King County have destroyed the state to include crime problems in the main shopping areas in Seattle from homeless the idiots have invited to come here. But leaving is not an option for everyone. Sometimes you have to see things fail until they become an issue that can’t be kicked down the road as these problems get more numerous in the state every day. But until it bites them on the arse, they will continue to figure out ways to harm people for their gain until their own kind put a halt to it at the polls. And that’s the problem you speak of.
But just to help you out on how far it went, the state didn’t tax Boeing for their trillions of dollars of sales for over 30 years, and protected them every way they could. But when they were forced to start taxing them, Boeing got out of here so fast they sucked out the O2 with them. Washington, at one time, was the headquarters for eight Fortune 500 companies: Boeing, Costco, Weyerhaeuser, Microsoft, Paccar, Nordstrom, Safeco, and Washington Mutual. But when the taxes sarted to go, that changed. And when it hurts enough, they’ll have to rethink their idiocy.
rwood
Any time a business in Seattle closes down and a lib looses it’s job, it’s a good thing.
I just read some state is granting Welfare Food Stamp usage in Restaraunts beginning Jan. 1, 2020.
Costco should lift that rule over the Holidays....for obvious reasons.
So where do the customers go that once dined at these now closed restaurants?
So do the people in Seattle simply stop eating?
The minimum wage has passed every court test it has been subjected to.
People still eat in other, better run restaurants which will boom. All in all employment will stay the same.
Food costs have doubled in 15 years I haven’t heard this much whining and braying about costs before. This is such BS.
But in this case, will they stop eating all together?
No, if they fight off the eagles they can eat out of the dumpsters.
I learned this week that I can have a very good and inexpensive lunch. Half a can of Luck’s pinto beans and one quarter of a Martha White sweet yellow corn bread costs about $.50 and is very tasty.
If they have no restaurant food, let them eat beans and cornbread ..... Marie Antoinette, queen of France
Duh... WINNING !
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